A Dangerous Woman
by Cheshire6845
Summary: Story takes place post Endgame and Janeway is what the title says.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimers:** This is Gene Roddenberry's universe…I just play in it. Hopefully you already knew that.

**Notes:** The writing of this story is finished so no worries about reading an unfinished work; however, the editing and betaing are still ongoing so it will be posted in parts. It's finishing up somewhere around 70,000 words, so be prepared to settle in for a bit. There's actually a video trailer for this story over at my channel on youtube...check it out if you want to get a better idea of what this story will be about. You can search for it by title ~ Star Trek Voyager A Dangerous Woman :)

Finally, Huge HUGE Thank You to QuantumSilver who is a top notch beta and friend and tirelessly encouraged me on and is now plodding through a second and sometimes third time to fix my mistakes. (which you can tell by this sentence alone is a time consuming process) QS, You rock!

To the reader ~ I hope you enjoy!

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><p><strong>A Dangerous Woman by Cheshire<strong>

"She's a dangerous woman."

That statement, made in a dank, backlit cellar of a bar had probably been uttered hundreds if not thousands of times. But this time, the recipient of the news was not daunted by the prospect. If anything, he was encouraged.

"Trust me." Chakotay leaned back, putting some distance between himself and the informant's stale breath. "I'm aware of her…abilities."

"No, man, no. Y-you don't understand." The informant leaned across the table, clearly nervous to even be discussing the woman in question. "She's killed more people than the Myropian virus."

Chakotay moved his drink away from the man's fidgety grasp. Having never heard of the Myropian virus, he was unimpressed with the comparison. "And has that killed a lot of people?"

The man actually paled, swallowed convulsively, and slumped back into his side of the booth. "Only wiped out an entire planet," he muttered sullenly. "No survivors."

Chakotay could easily see the haunted look in the man's eyes, and he had to admit the comparison did not sit well with him. But he had a role to play and he hardened his expression. "That's exactly the kind of contract I need carried out. So, if you want to get the other half of your payment, I suggest you arrange the meeting for me."

The man looked nervous again and his eyes quickly scanned the occupants of the bar, causing Chakotay to wonder if the woman in question was actually in the room with them at that very moment. But the man nodded quickly. "Tomorrow. Same time. She'll be here. You sit here in the booth. Don't approach her, man," he added quickly. "Even if you spot her, if you _think_ you see her…don't go up to her. If she's willing to take the job, she'll come to you." His eyes flicked around the room again before putting his hand on the table. "Now, give me the crystals."

Chakotay reached into his pocket and withdrew a small vial of the powder blue crystals the man so desperately wanted. He dropped the vial into the outstretched hand but then clamped his hand over the man's wrist, pinning it to the table, not allowing him to withdraw. "Those crystals cost me a lot of latinum. _Don't_ make me come looking for you."

The informant had actually flinched back as if he could escape without his hand. "I won't. I won't. She'll be here. You'll see."

"She better be." Chakotay released his hold and watched the vial quickly disappear into the fold of the man's clothes. Picking up his glass, he slammed back the last of his drink and then stood to leave. "Don't disappoint me."

For the first time since he'd slid into the booth, the man actually appeared cocky. "I work for her. Not you." The arrogance faded as quickly as it had appeared. "_You_ don't scare me."

"But _she_ does?" Chakotay countered.

The man snickered and shook out one of the crystals into his palm, apparently unable to wait any longer. "If you have any degree of self preservation, she'll scare you too."

Chakotay watched for a second as the crystal was quickly ground into powder on the surface of the table but turned away when the man leaned forward to inhale it. Making his way toward the exit, he noticed that at least three tables had emptied of occupants in the short while he'd been in the booth. He wondered if any of them had been her or if she was watching him even now. The door leading outside slid open at his approach and, with a last glance around the bar, Chakotay felt a small tendril of fear coil in his gut.

Because the truth was, that in some respects, Kathryn Janeway had always scared him.

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><p>.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

For Notes and Disclaimers see chapter 1

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><p>"Well?" B'Elanna demanded impatiently before Chakotay could even close the hatch of their junkyard runabout. "Did you find her? Was she there?"<p>

He gave her an exasperated look even though he understood her impatience. "No, I didn't see her, but," he hesitated, "she might have been there."

Her eyes narrowed. "What does that even mean?"

"I met her contact," he admitted, "and I'm supposedly going to actually meet her tomorrow."

"So you didn't see her?"

"No."

"But you think she may have seen you?"

He nodded warily.

B'Elanna folded her arms across her chest. "If she saw that it was you, why wouldn't she have come forward? Why wouldn't she have talked to you?"

"I don't know." He ran his hands through his hair. "Maybe she's being watched. Maybe she couldn't."

"Or_ maybe_ this woman isn't Kathryn either."

When he didn't meet her eyes, that was as good as an admission of guilt. He wasn't sure.

"Damn it, Chakotay!" She threw her hands in the air and stalked towards the front of the runabout. "We've been out here for three months this time. We're running out of supplies, we're running out of credits, out of materials to keep this bucket of bolts running, and I haven't seen my husband or my child in all that time." She turned back around to face him. "We can't keep doing this."

"I know," he tried but had to step out of her way as she barreled back down the short deck of the ship.

"We _can't_ keep chasing phantoms, Chakotay!"

"I _know_!"

She paused to gauge his sincerity. "Do you? Do you _really_?"

He held her eye. "Yes. I do."

B'Elanna softened. "I love her as much as you do…and I want to find her, but if this isn't her..."

"We'll go back to Earth."

"Well…okay then," she nodded. "Okay, if this isn't her then we'll go home, and we'll start looking for new leads." She disappeared into the cockpit.

"New leads," Chakotay repeated but he knew there wouldn't be any. It had taken them months to get this one. And it had been and still was…slim.

B'Elanna's head poked back out of the front cabin. "Do you really think it could be her this time?"

Her voice was almost a whisper, and Chakotay didn't want to answer her truthfully so he just shrugged. He had a gut feeling that it was indeed Kathryn they had finally found, but given the woman's deadly reputation he almost hoped…that it wasn't.

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><p>At the designated time the next day, Chakotay stepped once again inside the dingy, hole-in-the-wall bar. There seemed to be the same occupants as yesterday, and he briefly entertained the notion that they had never left. But at least one occupant was different. A lone hooded figure sat at the far end of the bar, concealed partially in the shadows. Chakotay couldn't be one hundred percent sure but he would almost swear that figure was the person he was here to meet. He was decidedly less sure if it was Kathryn or not.<p>

He moved further into the bar, casting his gaze around but walking past the booth he had been instructed to sit in. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the figure at the bar hesitate slightly in lifting their drink. Whoever it was, he or she had been surprised when he'd moved past the booth. Chakotay circled the bar completely until he was able to slide onto the stool next to the figure that he could now easily discern as feminine despite the long trench coat that concealed much of what she was wearing.

He made sure not to stare, but he managed to catch a glimpse of very dark red hair escaping from the side of the hood she wore. It wasn't Kathryn's normal shade, but as he took his seat, a single glance down told him that if this was indeed Kathryn, she had not given up on wearing heels to appear taller than she actually was. Her solid black knee high boots were faded and worn in spots, but they also sported a thick heel that was at least three inches.

Chakotay signaled the bartender to bring him a drink and watched as the one hand she had resting on the bar tightened around the glass she was drinking from. A fingerless glove covered the majority of her hand, but her nails still looked properly shaped with a clear polish on them. He snorted into his drink at the sight; Kathryn had always been furtively vain about her nails. Her head turned slightly in his direction at his reaction, but she said nothing.

Setting his glass back down, he noticed that due to a strategically placed mirror behind the bar, she had a perfect view of the booth he was supposed to be sitting in. Glancing sidelong at her, he gestured to the mirror and indicated the booth. "If you're waiting for someone to take a seat over there, you might be sitting here for a long time."

"If you're Chakotay," a husky unmistakable voice clipped out, "you're a pretty arrogant bastard."

Chakotay forced himself not to react to the sound of her voice. It had been two and a half years since he'd heard it, and it took every control he had not to jump to his feet and sweep her into his arms. Instead, he took a bracing sip of the drink to give himself a minute before he had to speak. He wanted desperately to see her face, but considering he was pretty sure her hidden left hand was already poised over a weapon and the fact that she was acting as though she didn't know him, he remained facing the bar.

With a million questions racing through his mind, he thought it best to continue the charade until he was sure she wasn't being watched. "I've found over the years that when dealing with someone of your reputation, a little arrogance never hurts."

"I don't suffer fools lightly, and I've found over the years that arrogance is fueled by idiocy."

This time when she spoke, she had turned her head toward him, and from the corner of his eye he could just see the tip of her nose and chin. Slowly he faced her, his pulse racing as he laid eyes on Kathryn Janeway for the first time in over two years. The sight of her took his breath away.

Her skin was ivory white and her hair was redder than he'd ever seen it, as though both of her natural hues had been taken to extremes. Her lips were painted a deep crimson and her eyes were darkly lined, making the crystal blue appear colder than he'd ever seen them. A puckered scar ran along her jaw line on the right side, and another fainter line spanned half way around her neck.

He blinked and before he could stop himself, he whispered her name. "Kathryn."

Something dangerous flashed in her eyes but disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Her head cocked slightly to the side. "You've been looking for me?"

Chakotay had wanted to kick himself for slipping up and calling her by her real name instead of the contact name he'd been given, but she didn't seem all that concerned. In answer to her question, he nodded. "Every day since you disappeared."

Her fingers played idly with her glass. "We can't talk out in the open like this."

"I have a ship in the hangar. It's only half a kilometer away."

"No." She shook her head. "I have an arrangement with the bar staff here." She motioned with her head to what looked like a dark ceiling-to-floor curtain. "Pay for the drinks and then follow me."

Chakotay nodded, watching her stand and cross the room. She paused at the curtain, looking back over her shoulder at him. He threw some credits on the bar and saw her disappear behind the curtain when he stood. Trying not to break into a sprint, he crossed the bar and ducked behind the curtain as well, surprised to find himself in a dimly lit hallway. Kathryn stood at a doorway a couple of meters away and motioned for him to follow her.

As soon as he reached the door, she pulled him inside, quickly closing it behind him and slamming him up against it. For a moment he was stunned and alarmed by the jarring motion, but then her warm body pressing into him, her hands running through his hair, and her mouth crushing against his brought him to an entirely different realization.

And for a brief moment, he knew they shouldn't do this. He had no idea what she'd been through while she'd been missing. No idea what kind of trauma she had obviously endured if the scars on her face and neck were any indication. This was definitely not the time or the place for this sort of reunion, but her single moan of frustration at his inattention had him acting otherwise. In an instant, he had his arms wrapped around her small frame, holding her tight against him as his mouth slanted over hers.

She moved to the side slightly so that she was straddling his thigh, and her hands never stilled as they slid from his hair and down his chest, pulling his shirt free from his pants. Shifting her weight to her outside leg, she snaked one hand underneath his shirt and around his back while the other began to play with the clasp of his trousers. "There's something I need to tell you," she panted into his ear.

"What is it?" he groaned, trying to wrench his mind back to what she was saying even as her hand stroked over him through the front of his pants.

Her hands stilled and he heard a faint click. Pulling his head back to look into her face, he felt cold metal press against the bare skin of his back just as she hissed, "I don't play well with 'fleet anymore."

Chakotay heard the hiss of a hypospray a scant second before her knee slammed upwards into his groin. She stepped deftly backwards, allowing him to double over in agonizing pain, collapsing ungracefully to the floor. But more than just pain was washing over him as he watched two of her tuck the hypospray back up her sleeve.

"Kathr…what did…shoo…" His words slurred together and his head dropped heavily to the floor.

She lowered herself until she was crouching near his head. Her eyes raked over him with nothing but pure malice. "The only people in the universe that know my name is Kathryn are 'fleet. You should have _never_ come after me again." She grabbed a handful of hair and pulled his head up so he was forced to look at her. "You tell your bosses that if I so much as _smell_ 'fleet anywhere near me again, I'll kill them all." She released him, letting his head drop painfully back to the floorboards. "And since they're the ones that trained me, they know I'm capable."

Chakotay felt her delicate hands rifling through his pockets and the pain in his heart was worse than the physical pain that was pulsing through his body. He was completely powerless to stop her. He couldn't even speak, explain, to try and talk some sense into her. Her feather-light touch was gliding over the lines of his tattoo, and he strained his eyes to the side to at least try and catch a glimpse of her.

"It's a damn shame you're 'fleet," she whispered in his ear as she held up the comm. badge she'd found in his pocket. "I think you and I could have really had some fun together."

She patted his face and stood. He watched helplessly as she dropped the comm. badge to the floor and used the heel of her boot to crush it. "So long, Chakotay."

The last thing he heard was the whine of a disruptor and then energy blasted into him, knocking him completely unconscious.

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><p>.<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

For Notes and Disclaimers see chapter 1

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><p><em>He'd never felt so good in all of his life. Voyager and all of the people on her were safe. Earth was visible right outside the viewports. And most importantly…Kathryn was in his arms. Chakotay felt as though he could stand like this forever and never tire of it. The scent of her hair filled his every breath. The feel of her small frame melted against him. Her fingers intertwined with his, reminiscent of that night so long ago when they'd thought Earth was an impossible dream. He'd lived this moment thousands of times in fantasies for seven years, and now the world of his dreams had become real. <em>

"_We're home, Chakotay," she said, her voice quiet and almost reverent. "We did it."_

_Chakotay stroked her hair, feeling blissfully happy that she didn't pull away from him. That she allowed him to touch her more familiarly than anytime they'd been in the Delta Quadrant. "You did it, Kathryn. You got us home."_

"Is this the one you're looking for?" a harsh, guttural voice asked.

_Chakotay's head snapped up, looking around the ready room, and he felt Kathryn lean away from him. Concern marred her features as she looked up at him. "What is it, Chakotay?"_

"_You didn't hear that?" he asked._

"Yeah, that's him."

_B'Elanna's voice. But he didn't see her. He and Kathryn were alone in the ready room. B'Elanna was down in sickbay. She and Tom had just had a baby. She wasn't anywhere near the bridge. Chakotay looked down to see if Kathryn had heard the engineer's voice but...she was gone. _

"_Kathryn?" He spun on his heel, trying to see if she'd simply slipped behind him. But the ready room was empty. He was alone. _

There was a loud clanking of metal and he bolted upright to a sitting position. "Kathryn!"

B'Elanna and a large alien guard stood at the opening of a dingy cell. The guard grunted, "I thought you said your name was Bels."

"It _is_," B'Elanna muttered disgustedly, watching as Chakotay sat on the prison cot still staring wildly at his surroundings.

"You deserve better than this piece of garbage," the guard gave his opinion. "We found him spaced out of his head two days ago behind one of the less reputable bordellos."

"B'Elanna?" Chakotay asked, blinking rapidly to try and keep her in focus.

"If you want," the guard offered, "we can keep him here a little while longer."

The half-Klingon engineer seemed to be actually considering the offer, and Chakotay's head was finally clearing enough that, given the look on her face, he almost wished she would leave him. But after what seemed to be a very long silent count, B'Elanna shook her head. "No, I think I better take him with me. He's a PetaQ, but he's my PetaQ."

The guard grumbled and shook his head. "You could do better." He shuffled forward and unlocked the cuff on Chakotay's ankle that had anchored him to the cot. Pulling him roughly to his feet, the guard shoved Chakotay towards B'Elanna. "Get out, you lowlife, before the lady changes her mind."

B'Elanna glared at him for a moment before turning on her heel and stalking away. With a look back over his shoulder at the guard, Chakotay quickly followed her.

Pain shot through his head as they stepped outside the prison and into the glare of the planet's two blazing suns. He had to squint to see, and keeping up with B'Elanna was proving to be more difficult than it should have been. She was already several meters ahead of him and was showing no signs of stopping to wait for him.

"B'Elanna, will you at least slow down?"

She did more than slow down; she stopped. Froze in her tracks. Chakotay felt like hell, but he instinctively straightened as she slowly turned to face him. Her hands were balled into fists at her sides and Chakotay began scanning the clutter of the street for something to use to defend himself.

"Do you have _any_ idea what I have been through the past two days?" B'Elanna ground out as she advanced on him.

Chakotay stiffened, determined not to back away from her approach. "No, I–"

"They told me you were _dead_!"

She hurled the statement at him with such ferocity that several people on the street began to move away from them. No one on this planet had any intention of getting involved with an obviously volatile situation. But as her statement sunk in, Chakotay understood. B'Elanna had been worried…_scared_.

"They laughed at me, Chakotay," she hissed. "They told me I was wasting my time. That I would _never_ find you alive. Do you have any idea–?"

Her eyes were blazing, but he could see the unshed tears there as well. "I'm sorry, B'Elanna."

Her nostrils flared angrily and for a second he saw a glimmer of teeth as her upper lip pulled back in a snarl. She pulled herself back, her breathing heavier than normal as she fought to control her anger. After several moments, she managed a jerk of her head. "It's fine. Let's just…go home."

Chakotay glanced warily down the street in the opposite direction. "I can't yet."

"_What_?" she snapped out.

"I need to go back to the bar I was at. I need to find out what happened–"

"What happened!" she repeated incredulously. "I'll tell you what happened. You were drugged, robbed, and phasered. You were thrown into the alley and left for dead. _That's_ what happened! And you want to go back there?"

"I have to," he tried. "That's the only place where I can find out–"

"No! No, we are not doing this. We are going to go back to the ship, and we are going to get the hell out of this system."

"_I'm_ going back," he stated flatly, knowing he'd never convince her with mere words when she was in this kind of a mood. He began walking back the way they'd come in the direction of the bar.

"Chakotay? Chakotay!" She caught up to him easily. "Will you just stop and think about this?"

He pushed past her. With a growl, she moved quickly and got in front of him, stopping him. Recognizing the stubborn set to his jaw, she held up her hands and tried a different approach. "Listen to me. Just for a minute. I want to find Kathryn as much as you do, but going back in this bar and getting yourself killed isn't going to help anybody." He opened his mouth to argue and she talked over him. "We'll keep trying. We'll go home and find another lead. We'll _find_ her, Chakotay."

"I already did find her, B'Elanna," he snapped. "She's the one who phasered me."

B'Elanna stared at him for a moment and then blinked. "What?"

Chakotay blew out a frustrated sigh. "The contact I was supposed to meet. It was _her_. It was Kathryn."

"Then why did she…what?"

He understood her confusion and gave her a quick version of meeting Kathryn at the bar. "I don't know, B'Elanna. It was like she knew who she was but…she wasn't herself."

"But you're _sure_ it was her?"

He frowned at her. "It was _her_."

"I'm just asking…I mean you _were_ drugged."

"_She's_ the one who drugged me," he admitted.

"Oh." She paused, trying to put together this new idea. "And was she the one who…"

"Robbed me," Chakotay completed the thought for her, looking down the street, unable to hold her eye as she decided whether or not she believed him. It had been hard enough for him to believe – and he'd been there.

"Well," B'Elanna said, drawing his attention back to her, "sounds like it was a hell of a reunion. I'm sorry I missed it." She watched him manage a small grin for her effort and couldn't help the small flame of hope she felt reignited in herself. "So, how did she look?"

The grin disappeared as he thought of the informant's warning and how true it had been. "Dangerous."

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><p>When the door of the bar slid open, all of the patrons looked up to scrutinize the newcomers. In a place like this, it was necessary for survival to determine as quickly as possible whether or not it was friend or foe walking in the door. At the sight of the Terran and the female, most of the patrons snickered and returned to their drinks.<p>

"I suppose the welcome could be worse," B'Elanna muttered, keeping an eye on the few customers that were still watching them. Chakotay silently agreed with her and headed for the bar, intending to talk to the bartender.

The alien behind the bar could have been related to the guard at the prison he was so large, and upon seeing Chakotay, his large shoulders began to shake with laughter. "You are one dumb Terran to be showing your face in here again."

Straddling one of the bar stools, Chakotay asked, "Why is that?"

The bartender snickered. "We wouldn't even be having this conversation if I hadn't told Mersei to stop leaving dead bodies in the office."

B'Elanna was keeping her back to the bartender, trusting Chakotay to watch it for her, while she kept an eye on everyone else. Two people had already made a discreet exit while most were pretending to not listen intently to the words being exchanged at the bar. At least one patron had flinched at the name "Mersei" but another sitting in the corner off to her right had actually leaned forward in apparent interest.

"Mersei is exactly the reason I'm back," Chakotay said, letting a cocky edge fill his tone. "I'm looking for her."

The bartender's eyes flicked over to the corner before sneering at Chakotay. "Why don't you just get out of here, Starfleet, before someone else kicks your ass?"

There was a scraping of chairs against the floor as several patrons got to their feet, and B'Elanna nudged Chakotay in the ribs to let him know it was about to get ugly. He glanced up to the mirror above the bar and saw that at least three aliens had taken more than a passing interest in their conversation while several others were scurrying for the door. He kept his focus on the bartender but felt B'Elanna move her hand to the small of her back where he knew she kept her d'k tahg sheathed.

"Why don't you just tell me where I can find Mersei before my friend here has to kill any of your customers?"

The bartender snorted. "You think this small one can protect you?"

Chakotay lunged forward and grabbed the bartender by the front of his shirt, hauling him almost halfway back across the bar that separated them before slamming his head down onto the hard wood. Quickly pulling the phaser B'Elanna had given him earlier from the waistband of his pants, he dug the business end of it into the bartender's fat face as he snarled, "I don't need protection from the likes of you." He glanced up to the mirror again and saw B'Elanna easily holding her own against the single still-standing fighter. "Now, call off your guard dogs, and maybe we'll leave your establishment in one piece."

"It's not _his_ establishment," the patron that was still seated calmly in the corner booth drawled. He leaned forward into the light, revealing himself to be human. "And unless I miss my guess, you aren't Starfleet."

"We aren't," Chakotay answered the implied question while keeping his hold tight on the bartender. "Is this your place?"

The man gave him a wry grin. "It is."

"Then call him off," Chakotay said, indicating with a jerk of his head the fighter that was still trying to circle B'Elanna, "and let's talk."

The man's crystal blue eyes watched B'Elanna for a moment. "She seems to be holding her own." He looked back over at Chakotay. "However, it is difficult to find someone in this part of space that can make a decent Risan Sunrise, so I'd like to keep my bartender intact."

"You know the price," Chakotay reminded him.

"You drive a hard bargain," the owner replied. "Now I'm doubly surprised Mersei let you live."

"You know her?"

"Of course I know her. I'm her brother."

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><p>.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

Notes and Disclaimers can be found in ch. 1

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><p>The statement hung in the air for a moment and then with a simple pivot, B'Elanna spun on the ball of her left foot and kicked out with her right, catching her last opponent underneath the chin with bone-crunching force. She didn't even bother watching him fall unconscious to the floor before she whirled on the owner. "You're her <em>what<em>?"

He cocked his head to the side to look past her at the fallen fighter. "I'm her brother," he repeated calmly.

"That's impossible. Kath- _Mersei_ doesn't have a brother," B'Elanna stated, hoping he didn't catch her almost slip.

If he did, he didn't acknowledge it. The man merely gestured for Chakotay to let the bartender loose. As a show of good faith, and because he wasn't remotely concerned about the bartender's fighting abilities, Chakotay let him up. "We need to find her."

"That's intriguing. Most people try to avoid her." He stood and gestured towards the back curtain. "Shall we resume this conversation in my office?" He glanced at the stirring, groaning bodies littering the floor. "It's a bit more suited to conduct…private affairs."

"I'm well aware of your office and what kind of affairs go on there," Chakotay replied darkly, earning an inquiring look from B'Elanna.

The owner laughed lightly as he held open the curtain. "Well I assure you, I don't share my sister's…attraction towards you." He winked. "You'll be safe enough."

Chakotay stepped past him, trusting B'Elanna to bring up the rear. As they all three entered the office, he couldn't help but glance down at the spot where he'd collapsed. It had been the last place he'd seen Kathryn's face.

"So why are you looking for Mersei?" the owner asked casually, walking over to his desk and pouring himself a drink.

"Who are you?" B'Elanna asked, her patience for the situation at an end.

"I could ask you the same question," he replied, taking a sip of his drink. Gauging her reaction, he relented. "My name is Trevor."

"Trevor _what_?" Chakotay asked, wondering if he'd claim the name Janeway.

Trevor smirked. "I think a single name will suffice for now. And you are?"

"Chakotay."

"Torres."

Trevor cocked an eyebrow as he sat back in his seat. "Are those first or last names?"

Chakotay ignored him. "You said you were Mersei's brother."

"Yes."

"Why would you tell us that?"

"I had my reasons," he replied cryptically. "You said you were looking for her."

"I am."

"Why?"

"I have my reasons," Chakotay retorted, getting another smirk from the younger man at his answer. "How did you know we weren't Starfleet?"

Trevor absently brushed his jet black hair away from his forehead. "I've known plenty of Starfleet, and none of them would have trashed my bar like the two of you just did without provocation." His eyes narrowed slightly as he regarded them. "You both have that 'air' about you." He pointed at Chakotay. "You _had_ a comm. badge." He leaned forward, setting his drink down on a low table. "I'd guess you were both 'fleet at some time…but you aren't anymore. Why is that?"

B'Elanna glanced silently at Chakotay. His gaze remained on Trevor. "I had no reason to stay."

The bar owner snorted. "That's never stopped any 'fleeter I've ever known. _Most_ of them have no reason to stay," he sighed dramatically, "but they do anyway."

"Sounds like you're rather bitter with Starfleet," Chakotay commented. "What's the matter? Were you not good enough for them? Didn't live up to your old man's expectations?"

The glimmer of amusement that had been in Trevor's eyes disappeared. "Why are you looking for Mersei?"

"Why are you protecting her?"

"She's my sister."

"No, she isn't," Chakotay shot back.

Trevor's chin tilted upwards and for a second his eyes glinted dangerously. Almost…recognizably. But then as B'Elanna watched, a cool mask of indifference settled over his features, and he sat back again. Without offering a denial, he simply allowed, "She'd do the same for me."

"Look, we just want to _talk_ to her," B'Elanna tried. "She has nothing to fear from us."

Trevor actually chuckled. "Oh, I'm quite sure of that."

"Then why won't you tell us where she is?" Chakotay pressed.

The man let out a long sigh. "I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to. I have no idea where she is. After she trounced you, she left the system." He gestured vaguely in the air. "She's gone."

Chakotay sank back against his chair a look of utter defeat on his face. Casting an anxious glance at him, B'Elanna sat forward. "Do you know how to contact her?"

Trevor shook his head. "Mersei comes and goes as she pleases. She'll contact me when she's ready." A corner of his mouth quirked upwards. "I _could_ pass on a message to her for you…but I imagine it'll be a year or so before she resurfaces." He studied their crestfallen expressions for a moment before slapping the arms of his chair and pushing himself to his feet. "As much fun as it's been conversing with fellow Terrans…I do have an establishment to put back together."

Understanding the dismissal for what it was, they both got to their feet and headed for the door. Moving with them, Trevor indicated an exit at the opposite end of the hall. "Use the back exit, if you don't mind. I don't need any more furniture broken up front."

Chakotay paused in the hallway, and looking Trevor in the eye, he realized the bar owner was shorter than he was. "Next time you do talk to her, tell her to get something to eat besides coffee. It'll help her sleep."

Trevor frowned at the odd request but said nothing and watched as the two visitors ducked out the back door and into the alley. With a glance towards the front of the bar, he slipped back into his office and closed the door behind him, locking it. Circling the desk, he sat down and pulled a small device out from behind the bottle of liquor. Holding it up to his mouth, he spoke into it. "Were you able to hear all of that?"

"Most of it. What was that last bit?"

"He said to tell you to lay off the coffee," Trevor replied with a hint of a smile that quickly disappeared. "I think these people actually know you. I swear she almost said your name while we were out in the bar."

"He knew it, too. Damn it," she fairly growled. "They must have found out about me before they left Starfleet."

"Or they never really left." He hesitated for a moment but offered, "I could arrange to have them-"

She sighed over the comm. link. "Don't bother."

Trevor closed his eyes, knowing as soon as heard her resigned tone what she intended to do. "Kathryn, it doesn't have to be you."

"There's no one else close enough, and they know too much, Trevor. They know who I am. They know about _you_. We can't let them just…leave." She paused. "It would be too dangerous."

Leaning back in his chair, he grimaced. "I know. I just didn't want you to have to…" he sighed. "Just…be careful. There's something about these two-"

She cut him off, the hard edge returning to her voice. "I'll be fine. I'm nearly in position."

* * *

><p>B'Elanna slapped the access panel on the hull of the ship and the ramp slowly began to lower. "But, Chakotay, this is actually really great. I mean, at least now we know she's alive."<p>

"We've always known that," he argued half-heartedly as the ramp clanged to the ground.

"We've _assumed_ that, Chak. Now that you've actually seen her – we _know_." They began walking up the ramp and into the ship. "We found her this time. We can find her again."

"I don't think that's going to be a problem," he said, watching the pilot seat swivel towards them.

"What? Wh–" B'Elanna followed his gaze and saw Kathryn Janeway sitting in the pilot's seat.

Chakotay threw his arm in front of B'Elanna to stop her from rushing forward. The engineer looked confused until she noticed the modified disruptor Janeway was pointing at them.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't kill the both of you right now." Her whiskey rough voice carried easily in the small confines of the ship, and she turned the weapon slightly so that they could see the selector switch was set to maximum – set to kill.

"People know we're here," Chakotay replied smoothly, ignoring her obvious attempt to intimidate them. "They'll come looking for us. Looking for you."

The corner of Kathryn's mouth moved upwards but Chakotay wouldn't have called it a smile. "I'll grant you that's a pretty good reason."

"Why are you here?" he asked.

She ignored his question. "I thought I made myself clear the last time we met." She shook her head. "You should have never come back to that bar."

"_Of course_ he went back to the bar," B'Elanna exclaimed. "It was the last place he'd seen you. Do you have any idea how long he's been looking for you? How long _we've_ been looking for you?"

Janeway tilted her head slightly, the light in the small craft playing across the scar on her jaw. "And who are you?"

"B'Elanna Torres," she answered, glancing unsurely to Chakotay. "You used to call me 'Lanna."

A crease marred Janeway's forehead before she gave a slight shrug. "Never heard of you."

"NO!" Realizing a split second too late what Kathryn was going to do, Chakotay didn't move quick enough to get in front of the beam of energy that struck B'Elanna square in the chest, lifting her off her feet and slamming her backwards into the bulkhead.

He rushed to her side, sparing a horrified glance at the woman that meant everything in the universe to him even as he knelt beside his oldest friend now lying crumpled in a heap on the floor. He didn't care if Kathryn shot him or not at this point, but he begged the spirits to let B'Elanna still be alive. His hand was shaking as he reached underneath the collar of her scorched tunic.

As soon as his touch felt the steady pulse of her heart, he let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. His chin dropped to his chest in relief. "She has a daughter. And a husband." He glared at the woman still seated in the pilot's chair. "You could have killed her."

Janeway shrugged. "She'll live."

Chakotay narrowed his eyes at her. He knew Kathryn better than anyone. Even this different darker version. That shrug hadn't been nearly as casual as she'd intended. Her eyes scrutinizing B'Elanna's limp form showed more concern than indifference.

"Why?" he asked.

Kathryn's eyes flicked quickly away from the unconscious B'Elanna and met his, becoming instantly colder. "Why _what_?"

He slowly got to his feet. "Why didn't you kill her?"

For a brief second confusion marred Kathryn's features and Chakotay recognized it. It was the same look he'd seen on her face in the brief glance he'd given her as he'd rushed to B'Elanna's side.

"Would you _rather_ I kill her?" Kathryn snapped at him.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "No, I'm incredibly thankful that you didn't. She's a dear friend to both of us. I was just curious."

Kathryn got to her feet and moved towards him, the aim of her weapon never wavering from his midsection. "Curiosity killed the cat, Commander."

"I never told you I held the rank of commander." If he hadn't been watching her so intently, he would've missed the flash of uncertainty in her eyes.

She ignored his comment. "I'm leaving. I suggest you do the same or you'll share the same fate as the cat."

She'd only taken a single backwards step towards the lowered ramp when he called out, "Computer, seal hatch. Authorization Chakotay Delta four seven."

"Computer, belay that order!" she snarled to no avail. Fury washed over her as the ramp continued to close. She could have made it if she hadn't hesitated. With one movement, she had the disruptor jammed underneath Chakotay's chin as she pushed him back against the bulkhead. "Open it!"

"No." He looked her in the eye, ignoring the weapon digging into his jaw. "I've searched for you for too long. I'm not letting you just walk out of here."

"I don't know who you think you are, or who you think I am, but if you don't open that hatch right now," she pulled a knife from her belt and held up it for him to see, "she'll die." She pointed the blade at B'Elanna's unconscious body. "I'll embed this so deep into her neck that you won't be able to do anything but watch as she bleeds out all over the deck of this ship."

Chakotay swallowed thickly. "I don't think you will." Kathryn was incredulous and he spoke quickly. "You changed that weapon to stun at the last second. You could've killed her then but you didn't. You could've killed me multiple times by now and you haven't. You don't want to kill us, Kathryn. Not us. You _know_ us."

"Stop. Saying. That." The knife flew from her hand, sinking into the leather collar of B'Elanna's jacket, barely missing the engineer's face. Kathryn pulled out another blade. "Now open that hatch. Or she dies."

This time, Chakotay knew she meant it. He'd pushed her too far, and B'Elanna would pay the price if he kept pushing. "Computer, release hatch. Authorization Chakotay zero five two zero."

The ramp slowly began to creak back open and Kathryn finally backed off, pocketing the second blade. Keeping her weapon leveled on him, she knelt down and retrieved the knife she'd thrown from B'Elanna's collar.

"Did you recognize the code, Kathryn?" he asked as she regained her feet. Her eyes flashed dangerously at him. "Zero five two zero?" he repeated. "It's your birthday. May twentieth."

The hatch clanged loudly as it settled onto the surface of the hangar. Moving towards it, she didn't acknowledge that he'd spoken. "_Don't_ come looking for me again."

Chakotay shook his head. "I'll always find you, Kathryn. I will never stop looking."

She paused. "That's too bad then…for your friend." With a whip like movement, the knife she was still holding flew through the air again, embedding itself with a sucking sound in B'Elanna's thigh. "My aim is true, Commander. I've just severed her femoral artery."

Chakotay swore, immediately rushing into action to try and stem the flow of blood from B'Elanna's leg. Within seconds his palms were slicked with blood. He jumped up to get the medkit, fumbling to get it open with one hand while trying to apply pressure to the wound with his other. Sparing a quick glance to see if Kathryn was still there, he said, "You didn't have to do this."

"You left me no choice. I'm sure with the medkit you can stop the bleeding, but there're no medical facilities on this planet that will be able to properly heal it." Kathryn backed down the ramp. "I guess you'll have to go elsewhere if you don't want her to lose the leg."

"Kathryn…wait!"

"So long, Chakotay," she said, standing at the foot of the ramp. "For your sake, I hope I never see you again."

* * *

><p>.<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

For Disclaimers and Notes see ch. 1

* * *

><p><strong>*6 months later*<strong>

Chakotay rubbed the back of his neck, digging his thumb into the top of his shoulder as best he could at the odd angle. Tom had kept him pinned under the newest shuttle for more than a few hours as they did a walk-through of each and every circuit that had been added over the course of the past week. One of the new systems was causing a cascade effect of power loss, and until they found the problem, the new design couldn't go forward in production. It was tedious, mind-numbing work, and because of the tight confines under the ship, it had been back-breaking work as well. But it was necessary. And the spirits knew he owed Tom and B'Elanna for simply putting up with him.

He sighed as he made his way up the walkway to his front door. He owed them a lot. They'd kept him sane the past three years. They'd helped him search for answers, supported him when they didn't find any, and left him alone when he needed the space. Even when B'Elanna had woken up in the sickbay of a starship with a sore leg and bruised chest, she hadn't tried to hurt him. Well, not too much anyway.

Honestly, Chakotay had been surprised she'd taken it as well as she had. Kathryn had hurt her emotionally as well as physically. B'Elanna didn't show it often but she had a vulnerable side. Kathryn's knife may have injured her leg, but the complete indifference and disregard with how she'd treated B'Elanna had cut deeper than any knife ever could have. B'Elanna hadn't said much about it to Chakotay, but Tom had pulled him aside two weeks after they'd returned to Earth demanding to know exactly what had happened.

Chakotay had told Tom everything, leaving nothing out, and the hurt he'd seen in the pilot's eyes had made his decision for him. He would continue to look for Kathryn, but he would no longer put anyone else in harm's way. The next lead he found for her, he'd investigate on his own. No back up. If she killed him…it just might be for the best.

But the truth of the matter was that there was little chance of that happening. There had not been a single whisper of her since that day she'd left him holding B'Elanna's life in his hands. She'd walked away. And there were days now when he could no longer convince himself that finding her was really what he needed to do. Granted, the days were few and far between, but the seed of doubt was there. The Kathryn Janeway he had known and loved would never have been able to walk away like that. He was no longer sure that even if he found her again, he'd truly be able to bring her home.

Making his way inside the modest home he'd purchased, he paused in the doorway leading to the kitchen. The message light on his communications console was blinking, and he knew it was Gretchen calling to check on him. She always did every few days if she didn't hear from him. She no longer asked if he'd found or heard anything about Kathryn. Now she simply called to check on him, and he couldn't help but wonder, if after all this time, she had given up on ever seeing her daughter again.

Rolling his tired shoulders through a few rotations, he turned his back on the console. He was too tired to face her today. Like her daughter, Gretchen had a keen eye for knowing when he was lying, and if he called her now and she asked how he was doing…he'd lie. And she'd know. It'd be better for both of them if he simply returned her call tomorrow…in the morning, when he hadn't yet faced another empty day.

He absently ordered a coffee from the replicator as he pulled out a few dry ingredients to put together a light dinner for himself. He was too tired to eat and hoped the caffeine would wake him up enough to make it through the evening, but after only a few sips he grimaced and put the cup down. He wasn't quite tired enough to drink the whole mug.

Taking a few crackers with him but completely bypassing the couch and his living room, he headed straight for a shower. He had planned on culling through more sector activity reports tonight, but like Gretchen, they would have to wait. His bed was calling and the simple act of lying down had taken priority over anything else he'd planned.

Despite the hot water of his shower relaxing the muscles in his shoulders and neck for the first time in hours, he kept it short. Never even calling for lights, Chakotay pulled the covers back and slipped into bed. Closing his eyes and completely relaxing his body for the first time that day, he waited.

Patience had never been her strong suit, and within minutes, she silently crossed the room and approached his side of the bed. Only when the cold metal of her knife touched his throat did he open his eyes.

"Hello, Kathryn."

* * *

><p>.<p> 


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimers and Notes can be found in ch 1

* * *

><p>The only noise in the room was the sound of their breathing. His was calm while hers was open-mouthed and heavy as though she'd been running. Moonlight shown in through the window, illuminating her already pale features as she stood over him. Chakotay couldn't be entirely sure because of the poor lighting, but it looked as though she had dark circles under her eyes.<p>

"Were you expecting me?" Her voice was a harsh whisper.

He was careful not to shake his head. "No…and yes." Her nostrils flared in annoyance, and he hurried to clarify his answer. "I wasn't expecting you when I walked in, but once I was inside, I knew you were here."

"How?" she growled.

He made a show of inhaling deeply. "A very light scent of roses and…" he took another shallower breath, "and coffee. I'd know that scent anywhere. I've missed it."

Her eyes narrowed and although her breathing had calmed, his answer seemed to have distracted her. Silence reigned as neither of them spoke. She'd obviously come here with something on her mind and he waited for her, taking the opportunity to study her for a few moments. He could tell she was tired, fatigued even. The slight tremor in her hand as she continued to hold the blade against his throat gave her away, but he had to wonder if she even realized she was still holding it.

Her arm had relaxed slightly as her gaze swept almost drunkenly over the room. Chakotay knew he could easily knock it away before she had a chance to react, but that wasn't what he wanted. At least, not yet. He wanted to know why she had come. Keeping his voice low he said her name.

It had barely been a whisper, but she reacted as though lightning had struck. Her features hardened and she glared down at him with refocused intensity. The blade nicked his skin, and he knew it had been intentional.

"What did you do to me?"

The way she hissed the question did not really surprise him, but the question itself did. Chakotay blinked. "What?"

The muscle in her jaw tightened and she leaned in closer to him. "You heard me. I want to know…the last time we were together…you _did_ something to me. I want to know what it was!"

Chakotay could only confess confusion. "I'm sorry. I don't know wh–"

A snarl was the only way to describe the noise that came from the back of her throat at his denial. The knife moved away from his neck and was on the way to his face when Chakotay snapped a hand out to grab her wrist. Tightening his grip, he rolled, pulling Kathryn off balance and up against the side of the bed. Maintaining an acute awareness of the wrist he still held, he didn't stop rolling until he had her off her feet and pulled halfway across the bed. She didn't come easily, but Chakotay had momentum working for him. He ended up on top, straddling her, and keeping her hand with the knife pinned down above her head.

Kathryn yelled and bucked against him, trying to shake him off, but he tightened his hold and managed to catch her other hand as well. "Enough, Kathryn, _enough_!"

Chakotay was shouting before she finally stopped struggling against him. They were both breathing hard, and she glared up at him. It was a far cry different from the last time he'd seen her in bed bathed only in moonlight. He took a deep breath. "Let go of the knife, Kathryn."

"No."

"Then we're going to be staying in this position for a long time."

With a burst of energy, she struggled again against the hold he still had on her, managing nothing but having his fingers dig deeper into her wrists and feeling his weight push her further into the mattress. She yelled in frustration.

Chakotay actually chuckled although there was no humor in it. "Drop the knife, and I'll let you up."

Kathryn's glare at him in that moment would have made a lesser man run screaming from the room.

He simply waited.

With a sigh of disgust, she finally opened her fist, releasing the hilt and allowing the weapon to roll to the bed. Chakotay shifted his weight and knocked the knife to the floor before he moved quickly off of her. She moved just as fast, getting to her feet on the opposite side of the bed. The face off began again.

"Let's try this again," he said. "I haven't done _anything_ to you. I don't know what you're talking about."

"I don't _believe_ you."

He ran a hand through his hair. "Okay, what makes you _think,_ I did something to you?"

"You _must_ have. I can't–" She spun away from him, cutting herself off. Her hands clinched into fists at her sides, but she turned her head slightly so she could look sideways at him. "Did she survive?"

"Did _who_ survive?" he asked.

"That woman that was with you," she spat out. "The Klingon…Tory something. The one I…"

Her voice trailed off before she actually admitted what she'd done. Chakotay nodded. "Her name is B'Elanna Torres," he clarified for her, "and yes, she survived."

Kathryn's shoulders dropped slightly at the news, and Chakotay could've sworn he could see some of the tension she carried leaving her. He decided to explain further. "There was a Starfleet ship in the sector with a proper medical bay. They were able to heal her." He watched her carefully. "I didn't know you cared."

Her head snapped up and she whirled to face him. "I _don't_ care!"

He cocked his head slightly to the side. "Then why did you ask?"

She glared silently at him, her jaw working as though she was fighting with herself about whether or not to answer his question.

"Kathryn," he pushed lightly.

"I can't–" she cut herself off again and paced towards the window. She shook her head. "I can't stop thinking about you," she finally admitted. "Or her. I don't _know_ why I care."

Chakotay watched her silently, the moonlight near the window illuminating the way her hands shook slightly as she absently rubbed at the muscles of her neck. Her confession had just burned away the niggling feeling of doubt that had been festering in him the past six months. It didn't matter who she thought she was or what she'd been through. His Kathryn was still in there.

"I know why you care," he offered, "and it's not because of anything we did to you."

"Then what?" she snapped at him, her hand dropping back to her side. "What is it? Because I swear I haven't slept for the past six months because of this…whatever this is."

"I know the feeling." He smiled faintly. "I haven't slept for the past three years because I was worrying about…someone." Her eyes narrowed at his hesitation, but he continued before she could question it. "I'll tell you what I know, but I don't know much. And I don't think you're going to like hearing what I can tell you."

Her back straightened and her chin came up. Bracing herself, she fixed him with a penetrating look. "Tell me."

* * *

><p>She ate with gusto. Devouring the first sandwich he'd placed in front of her and making significant progress on the second with only two bites. Chakotay sipped his tea as he tried not to stare. They'd left the bedroom and moved down to the kitchen after a bit of persuasion on his part. He'd reasoned that they could just as easily continue their standoff sitting down, and he hadn't been above using coffee as a negotiating tool. The first two cups of that had disappeared within seconds, but at least that hadn't been surprising.<p>

"So talk," she said, after swallowing another mouthful of food and chasing it with a sip of her coffee.

He'd been mulling it over and still wasn't sure where he should start. They say it's always best to start at the beginning, but knowing Kathryn, he didn't think she'd sit through the entirety of their first seven years together. "Before I start, I'd like to know where you were in 2378."

For a second, she froze, but then a little too casually, she reached for the coffee cup. "A little over three years ago? What does that have to do with anything?"

"I just wondered if you were working for Starfleet then."

This time her eyes met his and they were hard. "_Were_ you?"

"Technically speaking…yes." He knew he needed to tread carefully. "There was a situation that became mutually beneficial for me to pledge my support to a starship captain."

She leaned back, eyeing him curiously. "Like a peace treaty?"

"A truce," he agreed. "I needed to protect my crew and she needed–"

"_She_?"

"Yes, the captain was a woman."

Kathryn gave a light snort and returned her attention to the remnants of the sandwich. "Did you sleep with her?"

The question caught him off guard. "No!" She raised an eyebrow at his denial, and he wondered if she really did remember. "Well, yes, actually but it wasn't until we were home."

Now she smirked outright at him. "Home? What? You didn't want to do it in space?"

He shook his head in frustration. "No, that's not what I meant. I meant that she…_we_ didn't want to have a…physical relationship while I was under her command."

"So you waited because of the command structure?" she clarified, not bothering to hide her disbelief.

"Yes," he sighed, hoping she would drop the subject. He wasn't even quite sure how they'd gotten this far off track, but it wasn't exactly a pain free thing for him to discuss. They'd finally come together, a wonderful single night that had promised a beautiful future only to be shattered the next morning when Kathryn had disappeared. Only to reappear now, sitting in his kitchen, and apparently unknowingly discussing herself.

She popped the last bite of food in her mouth and spoke around it. "Well, I sure as hell hope she was worth the wait."

"She was," he confirmed. "She still is."

Kathryn's eyebrow rose again, then she frowned. "It's not that Klingon woman is it?"

He chuckled. "No. Torres is married to someone else. A pilot by the name of Tom Paris." He paused, watching for a sign of recognition but saw none. "They have a daughter, Miral. She's three years old."

Kathryn did not seem impressed or interested. "How did Torres know my name, and for that matter, how did you?"

Chakotay shook his head. "You never answered my question. Where were you three years ago?"

She wiped her hands off on her pants, annoyed that she hadn't been able to lead him off topic. "Running a small rig out by Deep Space Nine. I was working freelance."

He waited, wanting to know if that was the answer she was going to commit to. When she offered nothing else, he shook his head. "You're lying."

She didn't deny it. She simply leaned back, running her thumb over the tips of her fingernails. "What makes you say that?"

"Because I was with you three years ago. I know where you were and what you were doing and _trust_ me, you were nowhere near DS9."

She got to her feet so violently the barstool she had been sitting on fell over. In two steps, she closed the distance between them, getting right in his face. "Then you tell me where I was," she hissed, "because truthfully, I have no fucking idea."

He hesitated in saying the truth. He hesitated because if she really had no idea, like she had amnesia or something, he wasn't sure the best psychological way he should break the news to her. When she took a deep breath in though, her chest unexpectedly rubbed against his and he blurted, "We were in the Delta Quadrant…on a ship called Voyager."

She blinked and the fury that had rolled into her eyes vanished as quickly as it had come. Taking a step back, she shook her head. "No. That's not possible."

Her reaction surprised him. It was a denial, yes, but not one of disbelief or thinking the idea outrageous. It was almost as though she was afraid he was speaking the truth. "Kathryn?"

She took another almost stumbling step away from him, her hand grabbing at the counter-top to keep her balance. Her eyes were closed and she shook her head. "I was never in the Delta Quadrant."

Chakotay regarded her warily. Her last statement had been directed at herself, not at him. He took a cautious step towards her. "Kathryn?"

"No!" Her hand shot out, grabbing his throat and pushing him back up against the wall. "I was _never_ in the Delta Quadrant."

Her eyes were blazing at him but as angry as she sounded, all he could see in the crystal blue depths was fear. And confusion. Gently, he reached up and pulled her unresisting hand away from his throat. "I can prove you were."

Pulling her hand from his grasp, she retreated, walking stiffly until she was as far away from him as the room allowed. She stopped only when she reached the window. It was well past midnight, and the moon continued to shine brightly over the yard. Chakotay watched as she stood staring out at the sky, one hand held fisted near her mouth, the other on her hip. The scene was so familiar and one he had seen so many times over the years.

And like most of those times he had seen her like this, he knew she was exhausted. As soon as they'd entered the kitchen, he'd seen the dark circles under her eyes and confirmed it wasn't his imagination that her hands trembled. She was thinner than when he'd last seen her and judging by the way she'd eaten, he could only imagine it had been awhile since she'd had a decent meal.

He rounded the small bar, but not wanting to crowd her, kept the dining table between them. "It's incredibly late, and I don't know about you, but I could really use a few hours sleep."

"I'm fine," she bit out.

He smiled faintly at the not-completely-unexpected response. "Well, I have an extra bedroom and bathroom if you want to freshen up or maybe stretch out."

She didn't quite look at him. "I tried to kill you and now you're pulling out the sofa for me?"

"You didn't try to kill me, Kathryn. You've had numerous opportunities and you haven't done it yet. I'll take my chances."

Turning away from the window, she faced him. "You said you could prove I was with you in the Delta Quadrant?"

He nodded. "I can."

She studied him. "I don't know if I want you to."

"The Kathryn I know would never back away from the unknown," he tried.

"I haven't decided whether or not I am the Kathryn you claim to have known."

He gestured towards the back of the house where the bedrooms were. "The bathroom has a full size whirlpool bathtub in it." He saw her eyes flick towards the back of the house as though she could see the shrine he knew she worshipped at. "If you were so inclined, you'd be more than welcome to use it. There are towels and a spare robe in the closet in the bedroom." He turned away from her and began walking back towards his bedroom. "You can do what you want. I'm going to get a few hours sleep. In the morning, if you're still here, we'll talk some more."

Chakotay entered his bedroom and closed the door behind him. His heart was pounding and he couldn't believe that after all this time, he had just walked away from her like that. It took everything he had to not rip open the door and go rushing back down the hall just to see if she was still there. If she disappeared again…he'd never forgive himself. He'd probably kill himself for being so incredibly stupid, and B'Elanna, if she ever found out…he might as well just kill himself now and be done with it.

After what felt like an eternity, the silence of the house was broken with the sound of water rushing through the pipes. His head dropped back in a quiet thud against the door. A small smile played on his face.

She had stayed.

* * *

><p>.<p> 


	7. Chapter 7

Notes and Disclaimers can be found in ch. 1

* * *

><p>With morning rays of light streaking in his room, Chakotay dressed quietly. He'd slept with his bedroom door cracked open, unable to completely relax in fear that Kathryn would slip out during the night. But he had heard nothing, and even now the room across the hall was quiet. He debated internally with himself about checking on her. If she was sleeping, the last thing he wanted to do was wake her, but the need to physically see her and reassure himself that she hadn't been an apparition of his grief-filled mind was overwhelming.<p>

As quietly as he could, he pushed open the door to the guest bedroom and slowly exhaled the breath he'd been holding. The covers on the bed weren't even turned down, but Kathryn Janeway was sprawled diagonally across it, clutching a pillow and wearing the bathrobe that had been in the closet. Chakotay felt like he could stand there forever, watching her, but he was quite sure if she caught him doing that she might actually follow through on her threat to kill him.

He pulled the door to the bedroom closed and made his way to the comm. console near the kitchen. Knowing Gretchen would be out for her morning walk, now was the perfect time to call and leave her a message assuring her that he was fine. He also needed to call Tom and B'Elanna. Not to alert them about his current houseguest, not yet anyway, but just to let them know he wouldn't be in to help work on the new shuttle. He considered calling the house, but placed the call to their "garage" instead so he could leave a message without getting the third degree. After that, he set the console to automatically transfer any incoming calls to his auto reply of being unable to take the call. If he and Kathryn did manage to make any headway in conversation, the last thing he'd need was an untimely interruption.

Moving into the kitchen, he debated about whether or not to brew coffee. Kathryn would undoubtedly want some, but he was quite sure the scent of it brewing would wake her. He was fairly certain that the only reason he'd gotten this far without waking her was because of how fatigued she'd actually been. Settling for getting the coffee ready so that all he needed to do was push a single button, he replicated a cup of tea and made himself a simple bowl of oatmeal.

As he ate, he pulled up information on the EMH to see if he was currently planetside. It would be a battle he knew to get Kathryn to agree to be examined, but it might also be the fastest way possible to determine what exactly had been done to her. She obviously believed, or at least wanted to believe, that she had never been in the Delta Quadrant. But how was that possible? And why was she so adamant about it? Had her memories of all that time been erased somehow or could she simply not access them? And was this all the result of some sort of accident she'd suffered or had it been done intentionally?

"That swill you served me last night was decaf."

The growl took him by surprise, and Chakotay almost choked on the sip of tea he'd just taken. Her approach had been completely silent, and coughing slightly, he stood to face her. "I never claimed that it wasn't."

Kathryn glanced at his tea and her nose crinkled. "Where's your replicator?"

"I have something better," he said, moving into the kitchen and hitting the button to begin brewing the coffee. "The real stuff. Fully caffeinated, I promise."

She slid onto the bar stool he had vacated, one hand rubbing absently at her temple. "I may not have to kill you after all."

He gave her a warm smile but was disappointed to see that she had changed back into the clothes she had been wearing the night before. "What would you like for breakfast?"

"Coffee."

He was uncommonly nervous with her just sitting there watching him. "You sure you don't want some eggs or toast–"

She held up a hand. "Just…coffee."

The brewer binged that it was done, and he saw her actually sit up straighter. Reaching for a mug, he asked, "Black, I assume?"

Kathryn nodded and eagerly accepted the cup from him, pausing for only the briefest of moments to inhale its aroma before taking a rather long gulp. As she swallowed, her whole body relaxed again so that she was almost slouching over the top of the bar. Chuckling slightly, he let her drink the first cup in peace.

As he gave her a refill he asked, "You said last night that you don't remember where you were three years ago. How far back does that go? Do you recall where you were last year or say ten years ago?"

She held the warm mug with both hands and was staring into it. "I can tell you everything that's happened the past two, two and a half years…but before that…" She shook her head. "Childhood is…blurry. I know I was a child; I can see myself as a child. It feels like there are happy memories there of running through fields or climbing trees or something, but there's nothing…solid."

"What about your brother? Trevor." He managed to say the name without choking on it too badly. After he'd gotten B'Elanna healed and safely home, he'd actually gone back to the bar again. It had been completely shut down with no trace of the man that had claimed to be Kathryn's brother. Like Kathryn, he had vanished. Quite frankly, it was the only trait the two of them had in common as far as Chakotay was concerned. "Do you have any childhood memories of him?"

"No," she answered, coldly, not liking that he'd brought up Trevor. "We didn't grow up together."

Chakotay nodded, not at all surprised. "What about Phoebe? Does that name mean anything to you?"

An odd look crossed her face. A mixture of confusion and alarm but she shook her head. "No, I don't know anybody by that name."

"Okay, you don't know anyone by that name," he allowed, "but does it mean something to you?"

Kathryn sat back and folded her arms across her chest, annoyed. "Why do you want to know? What does that have to do with…with anything at all?"

He gestured that she should give him a little bit of leeway. "What about Gretchen or Edward? Do those names mean anything to you?"

She got to her feet. "_Why_ are you asking?"

"Because _they_ are your family. Your mother and father. Your sister. Not–" he cut himself off before he said anything more.

But she'd heard the unspoken words. "Not…Trevor. Is that what you were going to say?"

He held her eye. "I don't know who Trevor is, but you, Kathryn Janeway…" He shook his head. "You don't have a brother."

It had been the wrong thing to say, and he'd known it before he'd ever said the words, but he'd needed to say them. And now, he could practically see all of Kathryn's defenses slip into place. Her face was devoid of expression except for her eyes. Her eyes were letting him know she was livid.

"Until you prove otherwise, which I seriously doubt that you can, _all_ I have is a brother. His name is Trevor. And if you want to continue having a discussion with me, you will not bring him into this again. What you and I are discussing does not concern him." She was practically grinding her words with her teeth. "Have I made myself clear, Commander?"

Her command tone was as forceful as it had ever been. He nodded and gave her a minute to believe that he wasn't going to keep pushing that point. "Why do you keep calling me commander?"

"Fine," she said tiredly, retaking her seat. "I'll call you Chakotay. What difference does it make?"

"You remember me telling you I served on a starship? I held the rank of commander, but I haven't told you that before now. So, how did you know?" He watched her closely and knew even though she wasn't looking at him she was definitely listening. "I guess though that if you had done any digging on me, you could have found that out easily enough."

"I didn't do any digging," she answered quietly. "That's what I call you in my…dreams. It's what I've always called you. I don't know why."

"You've had…dreams about me?"

"Even before I met you that day in the bar," she admitted without looking at him. "But lately, the past six months, the dreams have become much more…vibrant."

"Almost like…memories," he suggested.

She glared at him but the ire faded quickly. "There's always been a girl there, too, in my dreams. Dark brown hair. She looked _so_ familiar," she confessed quietly. "I've always called her Phoebe."

"Phoebe is the name of your sister," he supplied. "She's four years younger than you."

Kathryn took the news silently.

"I have some pictures of her that your mother gave me if you'd like to see them," he offered.

Kathryn actually paled. "Am _I_ in them?"

He nodded.

"Do you have _other_ pictures of me?"

"I told you I could prove you were in the Delta Quadrant. That I know you. That I've known you for a long time, Kathryn." He rounded the bar so he was on the same side as she was, and she immediately stood, putting space between them. "Please, Kathryn…let me show you."

She moved further away from him, grabbing one of the high backed dining chairs in a white knuckle grip. "Why? Why are you doing this?"

"Because I love you" was on the tip of his tongue, but he knew that wasn't something he could say yet. "I think something…I don't know what…happened or was done to you, and I just want to help you. To bring you back."

"Bring me back from where?" she asked quietly.

"From wherever you've been for the past three years."

"Trust me, you don't want to know where I've been," she said darkly. "My past… it isn't pretty."

"But I do want to know," he argued. "I think if we look into your past, we can figure out what happened to you. Get your life back."

She let go of the chair and walked to the window again, squinting against the sunlight. "You really think I was in the Delta Quadrant?"

"I _know_ you were."

Leaving the window, she walked past him and grabbed her coffee cup. He turned to watch as she poured herself another cup. When she faced him again, speaking over the rim of the mug, she asked, "Was I on that starship you served on?"

He chuckled. "You were more than on it; you were the captain."

She raised an amused eyebrow at him.

Too late, he remembered what he'd told her the previous night about the captain he'd served under.

"So, you and I…we've slept together?"

He felt his face heat up, but before he could try and explain their complicated relationship there was a pounding on the front door and a loud voice easily reached them in the kitchen. "Chakotay! Open the door!"

There was an immediate flash of betrayal in Kathryn's eyes, and Chakotay instinctively felt the danger level in the room rise exponentially. She hissed, "You bastard."

He held up his hands defensively. At least he'd recognized the voice. "It's just B'Elanna."

Kathryn swore, striding over to the windows, looking outside in all directions. "I never should have trusted you."

"I _didn't_ call her." Chakotay was just able to grab her as she pushed past him. "Kathryn, she doesn't know that you're here."

Her eyes smoldered, and the muscle in her jaw clenched when a male voice joined B'Elanna's. "Come on, Chakotay. Open up!"

Kathryn shook her head. "They can't know I'm here."

Chakotay wanted to argue. "They'll want to help–"

"No!" She jerked her arm free from his grasp. "I don't _know_ them."

"You _do_ know them," he insisted before relenting, "but you don't have to see them," he assured her. "I'll get rid of them, I swear." The pounding increased against the door. "But I have to answer the door or B'Elanna will break it down. Just don't…leave."

"I'll…wait." She pulled her arm free from his grasp. "In the bedroom."

He had to believe her and anxiously watched her head down the hallway. Waiting until she had the bedroom door closed behind her, he moved to answer the front door, ripping it open. "What!"

Tom and B'Elanna both straightened, surprised at his obvious anger, but the mood was immediately lightened when Chakotay was tackled around one of his legs by Miral. "Don't go, Kota!"

He had to step back so he could lean down and pry her arms away from his leg. Lifting her up to his shoulder, he assured her, "I'm not going anywhere." Looking accusingly at her parents, he asked, "What made you think I was?"

The tips of Tom's ears turned pink, but B'Elanna didn't look at all mollified. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe the fact that you left us a vague message about having unexpected business come up and you won't be able to come in for a few days."

"Yeah, and then when we call all we get is your recorded message," Tom chimed in. "You only leave that on when you're going out of the system."

Miral threw her arms around his neck. "Don't want you to go. Want you here."

"I _am_ staying here," he assured the little girl again. She giggled and gave him a sticky kiss on the cheek before demanding he put her down. As soon as her feet touched the floor, she disappeared towards the kitchen.

"So what is it this time, Chakotay?" B'Elanna asked. "Did someone spot her on Vulcan? Or maybe she showed up on Romulus this time?"

"Whatever it is," Tom said, "you aren't going without backup."

"I'm not going anywhere," he repeated.

B'Elanna frowned; she was starting to believe him. "Then you haven't heard anything new about her?"

"No. I haven't heard anything. All my sources have been quiet." Technically, it was the truth. He hadn't gotten any information from his usual network.

B'Elanna studied his face, trying to detect a lie. "I know you're trying to protect us after what happened last time, but when you do hear something, we're going with you."

"Fine," he agreed, hoping to end the conversation.

She nodded petulantly. "All right then."

"Well," Tom said, clapping his hands together a bit too brightly, "this was fun. I'll just grab the munchkin and we'll get out of here."

He tried to move forward into the house, but Chakotay stepped in front of him, blocking him. "I'll get her."

Chakotay disappeared towards the back of the house without another word. Tom glanced down at his wife as they both still stood in the open doorway. "That was odd."

B'Elanna nodded and they took a few curious steps inside, but before they could make it far, Chakotay came back around the corner carrying Miral, thrusting her into Tom's arms. Tom put her on the floor and kneeled down in front of her. "All right, my little klepto, you know the drill. Empty those pockets."

Miral giggled and began to pull out all sorts of little fossilized rocks that Chakotay always left low enough on his shelves for her. He'd learned his lesson early to leave the valuable stuff up high where she couldn't reach. Tom wasn't exaggerating when he called her a kleptomaniac.

"Are you sure you're all right?" B'Elanna asked, studying him carefully. "You seem…anxious."

"I'm fine," he nodded, accepting the rocks from Tom. "I just wasn't expecting company this morning."

"I wasn't expecting to be worried out of my mind that you had taken off on your own," she retorted.

"All right, anything else?" Tom asked his daughter.

She nodded and pulled out a leather hair-tie from her shirt pocket. "But I can keep it. The picture lady said I could."

Tom examined it and looked up at Chakotay, grinning. "The picture lady, huh?" He stood up dangling the hair-tie from his fingers. "So, who's the picture lady?"

B'Elanna was smiling too. She'd seen Chakotay glance towards the bedrooms when Miral had produced the innocuous item. After the scare he'd given her this morning, he deserved some ribbing. "Just what exactly was this 'unexpected business' that came up, anyway?"

Chakotay snatched the hair-tie from Tom's hand. "It's not what you think."

Tom sniffed the air. "Is that…coffee I smell?"

B'Elanna smirked and made a show of inhaling deeply. "I think it is. Since when did you start drinking coffee, Chakotay?"

"I don't, okay," he sighed, exasperated. "So now would you both please leave?"

The two of them were as incorrigible as ever. Tom looked hurt. "You mean we don't get to meet her-of-the-leather-hair-tie?"

"No!" He started corralling them back towards the door. "Miral, help me out here," he called over his shoulder to where the little girl had disappeared back into the living room. "Take your parents home."

"Okay, Kota!" She appeared, carrying a book from his shelf.

B'Elanna shook her head even though she was still smirking. "What has she got now?"

Chakotay immediately recognized the book and inwardly groaned. Their first Christmas back, the EMH had given everyone the same present. A collection of his best holophotos from Voyager all printed out and bound in a book. Miral loved the photo album. Anyone that sat still for more than a few minutes found themselves having to look through it with her, and as Chakotay watched with mind-numbing dread, Miral proudly pointed out a picture of Kathryn Janeway to her parents. "This is the picture lady."

* * *

><p>.<p> 


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimers and notes can be found in ch.1

* * *

><p>Kathryn closed the bedroom door behind her as quickly as she could. Trevor had been right. She shouldn't have come here. It was a mistake. He had tried every possible argument to persuade her against coming…and they'd all been good ones, but she hadn't listened. Now though, she should get out of here while she still could. Before she even realized what she was doing, she had already crossed the small room and had her hands on the bedroom window's release catch.<p>

"No!" She fisted her hands at her sides, stopping herself. She was not going to run. She was tired of running.

Turning resolutely away from the window, she paced the small confines of the room. The room wasn't all that small, but the bed took up a huge portion of the floor space. Kathryn looked forlornly at the bed. She had slept soundly last night. It had been the first full night's sleep in recent memory. Her dreams of faces unknown had not plagued her. The constant urge to flee had not jolted her awake with her heart hammering in her chest. She had felt…safe.

Kathryn ran her hands up over her face and into her hair. She was losing it. She was in a strange house with a strange man and for the first time in a long time she felt _safe_. It was insane.

And his notions were no closer to sanity than hers were. The Delta Quadrant! And her as a Starfleet captain. She snorted at the idea. Starfleet didn't make people captains unless they could control them, and even after months of trying they hadn't been able to control her. She'd been…untrainable. A failed experiment.

Or so they'd said.

"_Forget it. We tried. We failed. She's never going to be what you wanted." _

_The hushed whispers of an argument had convinced some inner part of her that is was worth the effort to remain conscious. The two men were keeping their voices low which meant whatever they were talking about was probably of interest to her. _

"_She'll do it. I just need a little more time."_

"_No. This experiment…is over."_

_Kathryn managed to pry open her eyes. She wanted to see who was talking about her, but her vision was blurry and all she could see were two figures. One of them seemed to notice she was awake. He moved closer and crouched down close to her head. _

"_You're making a mistake," the other man insisted. "We can still do this."_

_The hand that touched her head was gentle. "We never should have tried." _

The door to the bedroom creaked open and Kathryn sucked in a harsh breath, wrenching herself out of the memory that she hadn't even realized she'd been sinking into and found herself watching the absolute last thing she had been expecting to see.

As her heart hammered in her chest and sweat broke out on her forehead, a young girl that could have been no older than four or five walked boldly into the room, heading straight for the nightstand. Kathryn held her breath, not daring to move, and staring in complete shock as the girl opened the drawer and removed a small rock. She pocketed it and then spied a leather hair-tie on top of the nightstand. She picked it up, dragging it through her fingers. "Is this yours?"

Kathryn started at being addressed. The girl had given no inclination she'd even noticed Kathryn standing frozen to the spot in the corner of the room. She was even more surprised when the girl turned to face her and Kathryn could see light ridges on her forehead. The girl cocked her head slightly and raised her eyebrows in question.

"Y-yes, it's mine," Kathryn managed, keeping her voice low. "I use it to tie my hair up when I take a bath."

Without any fear at all, the girl approached her. She gave Kathryn a smile that definitely had a bit of imp in it. "Can I keep it?"

"Who are you?" Kathryn blurted, trying to shake the feeling of familiarity she had with the child. She'd never been around a child this young a day in her life, so why would this one seem almost as though she knew her?

The girl put her hands on her hips and stated rather haughtily, "I am Miral, daughter of Tom and B'Elanna." Then she burst into giggles at her own declaration.

Kathryn knelt down to be eye level with the child and patiently waited for the girl's laughter to cease before asking, "And do you know who I am?"

Miral regarded Kathryn curiously for a few moments before answering. "You're the picture lady," she said, beaming. She reached a small hand out to Kathryn's face. "You got hurt. "

Kathryn's hand immediately covered the puckered scar that ran along the underside of her jaw. A wave of remembered heat and pain coursed through her, but she clamped down on the memory, refusing to allow it to come to life. "I had…an accident."

Miral's eyes widened. "Did you fall down?"

"What? I…no, I didn't fall down," she managed with a shake of her head.

"I did," Miral declared, holding up her elbow for Kathryn to see a patch of skin that was lighter than the rest of her. "Daddy says with all the regen…regenr–"

"Regeneration," Kathryn supplied.

The little girl nodded happily. "Daddy fixes me. He could fix you."

Kathryn gave her head a small shake to try and get back to the topic she wanted to discuss. "Miral, you said I was the picture lady. What did you mean by that?"

Miral looked around the room and scowled before walking over to the dresser and tugging open the bottom drawer. There was nothing in the drawer but clothes and obviously not what she was after. Leaving the drawer open, she went to the nightstand that she hadn't already raided. Opening the drawer, she reached inside and pulled out a simple silver frame. She returned it to Kathryn, triumphant. "You're the picture lady."

Kathryn stared in muted shock at the picture in the frame. It was her. And Chakotay. They were both younger. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and his wasn't peppered with gray. Her arm was draped through his, and they both appeared to be wearing flowery leis.

"Everyone has pictures of you," Miral commented, pulling the hair tie out of her pocket and absently playing with it, "Kota hides his. Mama calls him a PetaQ."

In a fog, Kathryn slowly got back to her feet. She'd barely heard a word the child had said. The picture had completely captured her attention. She had no memory of it and yet she wanted it to be real. In the picture, she looked…happy.

"Can I keep it?" Miral asked, tugging on Kathryn's pants leg and holding up the hair-tie.

Kathryn had to tear her gaze away from the picture and look down. She nodded absently. "Yes, of course you can."

Miral beamed at her and hugged her leg, letting out another giggle. Kathryn almost fell over and had to grab at the dresser to hold herself up. Luckily the strange contact was over quickly and the girl released her. "I gotta go."

"Miral, wait–"

Before Kathryn could fully voice her objection, Miral was out the door, giving her a little wave as she pulled it closed behind her.

"Damn it."

* * *

><p>B'Elanna gaped at the picture her daughter had pointed out. Miral loved the photo album from the Doctor; she looked through it at least once a week. She loved seeing all the familiar faces and since she'd been able to talk she had always asked about Janeway. The one face in the pictures besides Kes that Miral had never met.<p>

Until now it seemed.

Slowly B'Elanna turned to face Chakotay. "She's _here_?"

Tom was a bit slower to catch on. "Wait, what…you mean _Kathryn_?"

Chakotay kept his eyes on B'Elanna as he admitted, "Yes, she's here."

B'Elanna's eyes narrowed. "You weren't even going to tell us, were you?"

He sighed. He should've known B'Elanna wouldn't make this easy for him. "No, at least, not yet."

Her arms folded across her chest. "I want to see her."

Chakotay shook his head. "No. I'm sorry but…no."

"Why not?" Tom asked, his tone more of concern than his wife's. "Is she all right?"

Chakotay hesitated, trying to think of how to succinctly explain the situation. "Kathryn is…she's not herself right now."

B'Elanna snorted. "Are you saying she was herself when she _phasered_ me?"

"No, I–"

"Chakotay, that woman," she pointed in the direction of the back of the house, "tried to _kill_ me!"

"I didn't _try_ to kill you," Kathryn's voice drawled out as she appeared from around the corner. "If I had _tried_ to kill you – you'd be dead."

Tom's eyes grew wide in his face at the sight of her. "Captain!"

Kathryn's gaze flicked quickly to the man standing behind Torres. She frowned. He was wearing a casual blue shirt and light colored pants, but for a second, she could've sworn he'd been wearing darker colors. Dark pants and red...

Chakotay noticed her hesitation. "Kathryn?"

She blinked and returned her attention to the two strangers in front of her. The woman was easily the more dangerous of the two at the moment, so she focused on her. "You wanted to see me, Lieutenant?"

B'Elanna was brought up short at being addressed by her former rank, and yet how many times over the years had she heard that exact phrase from Janeway's mouth. And usually with that same note of irritated weariness. "I…wait," she gave her head a little shake and held up her hand, "you know who I am now?"

It had only been the look on Chakotay's face that made Kathryn think back over what she had said. Why had she called her… She studied B'Elanna's face. After that day on the shuttle, she'd thought of this woman a lot. The truth was she _had_ meant to kill her when she'd shot her. She'd intended on killing Chakotay that day as well. But she hadn't. She'd changed the weapon to stun at the last possible second, and then she'd left him alive as well.

She remembered Trevor's reaction when she'd told him. He'd been very guarded and then asked her why. She hadn't been able to explain her behavior. It had pissed her off, especially when Trevor's expression had become one of concern. Her inability to hurt either of them had been something she'd thought a lot about the past six months. She didn't like not knowing why she did something; it was too akin to the conditioning she'd experienced during her months of hell. So what was it about these people?

Kathryn gestured with her chin towards Chakotay. "He told me you survived."

B'Elanna couldn't help the retort that passed her lips. "No thanks to you."

Kathryn's eyebrows drew together as a thought occurred to her. "I guess it was just _luck_ that a Starfleet ship _happened_ to be in the area."

All three of the former officers had served under Janeway long enough to recognize the dangerous tone her voice had taken on. Tom gently pulled Miral until she was tucked safely behind him, and B'Elanna glanced at Chakotay before answering. "Yeah," she shrugged. "I guess it was lucky."

Chakotay had seen Kathryn's hand slip to the small of her back, but he only managed to take one step towards her before she pulled a phaser, aiming it at all three of them. "And to think, I almost started to bel–"

"No! Don't hurt them!" Miral wailed, darting out from behind Tom's leg and towards Kathryn.

B'Elanna gasped and lunged for her daughter, but the little girl got past her, and seeing Kathryn flinch, Chakotay grabbed B'Elanna around the middle and held her back. "She won't hurt Miral!"

"You don't _know_ that!" B'Elanna growled, struggling against his grip.

But Kathryn had already jerked the phaser away, pointing it safely at the ceiling as the little girl approached her. Miral was still carrying the photo album and Tom put a reassuring hand on his wife's shoulder. "I think…it's okay."

"You love them," Miral instructed the older woman. "Be nice."

Kathryn glanced at the three adults warily and then knelt down to be level with the child once again. "I don't know them."

"Yes, you do," Miral insisted and flipped open the photo album to the middle.

Kathryn stared down at what could only be wedding pictures of the two people in front of her. And she was in almost every picture. Wearing the red and black Starfleet dress uniform with captain pips on the shoulder. She looked up and saw the three adults watching her closely, noticing that the woman had stopped struggling.

Turning back to Miral, Kathryn whispered, "Maybe you should show me the rest of those pictures."

* * *

><p>Chakotay held an ice pack to the side of his face. As soon as he'd released her, B'Elanna had slugged him and Tom refused to heal wounds inflicted by his wife, especially when he agreed with her reasoning for doing so.<p>

"Would you ever get between a targ and its cubs?" Tom asked rhetorically. "No. You should think of B'Elanna in the same category."

"Kathryn is still essentially the same person," Chakotay argued. "She wouldn't hurt a child."

Tom sipped at the coffee he held and looked into the living room where B'Elanna was hovering protectively as her child sat on the couch, showing the woman in question the photo album. He shook his head. "There's no way you could have known that for sure. If I were you, I'd stay out of B'Elanna's reach for awhile."

Chakotay set the ice pack down, wincing slightly. "And what about you?"

Tom eyed the bruising around the other man's eye. He shrugged. "It all worked out, and even if Kathryn _had_ taken off with Miral...she wouldn't have stayed gone for long. She would've brought that kid back within hours, begging us to take her."

"Yeah, Miral's a lot like her father in that respect," Chakotay quipped.

Tom didn't seem to hear him. "So, where do you think she's been all this time? And how'd she get those scars?"

"I don't know. We haven't gotten that far, yet."

"And she has no memory of Voyager or anything?"

"No." Chakotay shook his head. "Apparently she remembers the past couple of years, but nothing really before that. Not even her family."

"Did you ever ask Gretchen or Phoebe about that guy you and B'Elanna ran into? The one claiming to be Kathryn's brother?"

Chakotay sighed. "I sort of asked Phoebe once, hinted around anyway about the possibility, but she didn't seem very receptive to the idea."

Tom winced. "I can't imagine she'd like the implication." He looked back out at the living room again. "You know, we really should call the Doctor."

"I know, but I'm looking forward to broaching that subject with Kathryn about as much as I'm looking forward to going another round with your wife."

"Do you think she'd let me scan her?" Tom asked.

"Truthfully? No," Chakotay sighed. "But we can ask."

Arming themselves each with an extra cup of coffee, the two men joined the ladies in the living room.

"And this is Uncle Tuvok's party," Miral was telling Kathryn, pointing at a picture in the book. "And you know what?"

"No. What?" Kathryn asked tiredly. Her voice carried the unmistakable sound of patience, and Chakotay knew she had repeated those exact same words several times already. She didn't even look up when Chakotay stood near her, she just put a hand up and he slipped the mug of coffee into her hand.

"You were there!" Miral exclaimed enthusiastically. She turned the page of the book and Chakotay watched Kathryn roll her shoulders back.

"Miral, why don't you let me show her the next pictures?" He nudged the little girl in the shoulder. "I'm pretty sure if you look hard enough, you'll find some of Grandma Gretchen's paints are in the back bedroom."

Miral's eyes went wide and she practically threw the book into Kathryn's lap. "Kota will show you the rest."

All four adults watched the child disappear towards the back of the house.

"You know, Chakotay, if there are any of Gretchen's paints back there," Tom started hesitantly, "she'll destroy them."

"Or eat them," B'Elanna muttered.

"They're organic," Chakotay said.

Tom shrugged. "The kid's got two stomachs; she'll be fine." He looked at Kathryn, who was pinching the bridge of her nose. "Besides, I think Kathryn could use the break."

She lifted her head to find all three of them looking at her. She swallowed and then settled on Chakotay. "Thank you."

He smiled genuinely at her. "My pleasure, although I'm sure my spare bedroom will take the beating for it."

She smiled wanly at him before pushing to her feet, her free hand rubbing at the back of her neck. "It would seem that we've been through a lot together." She faced them. "All of us." She shook her head. "But it's still…difficult for me to believe. _Seven_ years in the Delta Quadrant…"

"We _remember_ it, and it's difficult for us to believe," Tom joked, trying to break the tension that was slowly settling in.

"Then why don't _I_?" she asked, her eyes meeting his. His were so blue they reminded her of Trevor and she had to turn away from him. "If everything you're saying is true…"

"It is, Kathryn," B'Elanna said gently.

"Then what the hell happened to me?" She growled the question facing away from them but spun back around. "Why don't I remember? The three of you seem to know more about my life than I do! Hell, Miral knows more about me than me!"

The three of them stood silently frozen for a moment before Chakotay finally took a step forward. "We're going to find out, Kathryn." He glanced at Tom before continuing. "I think it would be a good idea if we called the Doctor–"

Her head shot up before he could finish the sentence. "No. No doctors."

"Not doctors, really," Tom tried, "just the EMH. He knows you–"

"No," she repeated.

"Kathryn, if something was done to your mind, he really would be the best–"

"I said _no_, gentlemen."

She bit the words out with every intention of making her point painstakingly clear to them, but the room seemed to shift in front of her, and for the briefest of moments, she was no longer standing in Chakotay's living room. Two men she didn't recognize were standing in front of her, both wearing the white jacketed Starfleet dress uniform with golden trim. She heard her name and saw Chakotay approaching her, wearing a tuxedo and carrying two glasses of champagne. He extended one towards her and then his hand was on her shoulder. She knocked it away, sucking in a breath, and found herself once again in the brightly-lit living room.

"Kathryn?" Chakotay withdrew his hand but his eyes were full of concern. Tom and B'Elanna were both on their feet, watching her.

Her stomach lurched and she pushed past all of them. The coffee she'd just drunk was about to make a reappearance. Rushing into the bathroom, she slammed the door shut behind her, barely making it to the sink in time. She'd _seen_ them. _All_ of them. There'd been a whirlwind of faces, all dressed to the nines. All the people from Miral's photos.

Turning on the water in the sink, she looked up and saw her own haunted reflection in the mirror and then the briefest flash of herself wearing a sapphire blue gown. Her knees grew weak and she slowly lowered herself to the floor, her eyes closed, and images of people she'd seen in her dreams for years danced in front of her. They swirled around her. Laughing and dancing. Smiling and celebrating. All except two. The two with gray undershirts and white uniform jackets. They weren't smiling. Before today, she'd never seen them in her dreams.

Her head was pounding and she felt flushed as her heart hammered in her chest. She couldn't quite catch her breath. If it wasn't such a familiar sensation, she might have considered panicking. But she'd felt this way many times before. Every time the paralytic agent had begun to wear off after beatings she'd feel feverish. She knew how to control this.

Kathryn sought out the cool tile of the floor and laid the side of her face against it. Her next breath came easier. Keeping her eyes closed, she began to count. All she had to do was get through a minute. She could do that. She could last another sixty seconds. Sixty seconds was nothing.

"One…two…three…"

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><p>.<p> 


	9. Chapter 9

Notes: As my beta pointed out to me, apparently C/7 never happened in my universe cause I just completely ignore it as a possibility. Just fyi. And while I'm at it up here...Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing. I really appreciate it.

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><p>The soft mattress and cushy pillow under Kathryn's head made her think she wasn't actually regaining consciousness. She'd expected to feel pain when she woke up. Despite her inclinations, Kathryn slowly opened her eyes and found herself blinking up at an unfamiliar ceiling. The fog in her brain concerning her whereabouts did not recede quickly, partially because she had no real desire to confirm that she was, in fact, still dreaming. She liked the thought of waking up in a warm comfy bed without feeling the usual edge of panic and anxiety she lived with on a daily basis. Relishing in the delusion, she turned her head and saw an old fashioned clothes dresser and nightstand taking up space next to the bed. There was a single silver framed pictured positioned on top of the nightstand, and she remembered having put it there.<p>

She put it there after the little girl had left the room. The little girl's name was Miral. She was the daughter of Tom and B'Elanna. Kathryn pushed up to her elbows as the day's events all fell into place in her mind. She scanned the room and saw her overshirt and jacket hanging on the back of a chair with her boots sitting neatly on the floor underneath them. She glanced down at her chest, realizing she was only wearing her undershirt, but whoever had put her to bed had at least had the common sense to leave her pants alone. Her former crew or not, she would've had to kill someone for that.

Her former crew? Well, she had certainly taken hold of that thought rather possessively. Throwing the light blanket off and swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she slowly got to her feet. Running a hand through her hair, she pushed one of the curtains aside and saw that it was still daylight outside. She hadn't been asleep for too long then. Unless it was the next day already.

She frowned at that thought and took a seat on the chair so she could put her boots back on. Sitting closer to the door, she could hear hushed voices coming from the hall. Damn. That meant Chakotay wasn't alone. She really didn't feel up to dealing with a whole slew of people right now. She hadn't had any intention of dealing with anyone besides Chakotay, and she hadn't expected to be dealing with him as much as she was. Everything had gotten so out of hand. She'd already been here a day longer than she'd intended. Damn again. She hadn't contacted Trevor. He'd probably be going out of his mind by now with worry.

Kathryn got to her feet, stretching out a few muscles before quietly easing the door open. The voices were still continuing their quiet conversation, and it was by instinct that she wanted to hear as much of it as she could. She knew when she made her presence known they'd stop talking about…her. Kathryn turned her head slightly. They were talking about her. Chakotay and Tom. It sounded like it was just the two of them. She crept closer. If she heard something she didn't like, she could disappear before they even knew she was awake.

"So what did you tell her?" Tom asked.

"Who? Kathryn?"

"Well, yeah her too I guess, but I was really referring to the call you just took. It was Gretchen wasn't it?"

Gretchen. The woman Chakotay had said was her mother. She was oddly relieved to hear that her mother was apparently alive and well. She hadn't really given it any thought up to this moment, but it was comforting to know.

"I didn't tell her anything," Chakotay sighed. "What am I supposed to tell her? Your daughter is back but she doesn't know who you are. She was probing though…she suspects something."

"How is that possible?"

Chakotay snorted. "She's a Janeway."

"Actually, she's a Warren," Tom corrected. "She just married a Janeway."

"Then where do you think Kathryn gets it?"

"Gets what? The chip on her shoulder the size of Saturn, the steely resolve in the face of death, or the uncanny ability to have trouble find her like she's wearing a homing beacon?" Tom speculated only half-joking.

Kathryn sighed, growing tired of their conversation at this point. She wasn't learning anything, and she considered just going back to bed.

"So, are you going to tell me or not, Tom?"

Kathryn had just been about to show herself but the seriousness of Chakotay's tone had her flattening back up against the wall.

"Tell you what?"

"I saw you scan her."

Kathryn's hand tightened into a fist at her side and she forced herself to remain still.

"She was unconscious on the bathroom floor, Chakotay. I'm a medic. I _had_ to scan her," the pilot defended himself.

"Damn it, Tom! If she finds out–"

"All I scanned for was her vital signs," Tom argued. "I didn't calibrate the tricorder for anything further. As much as I want to know what was done to her…she's been violated enough. I wouldn't do that to her."

Kathryn rested her head back against the wall and released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"Thanks, Tom. I'm sorry I jumped to conclusions."

"Well, don't think the thought didn't cross my mind, but I just…couldn't."

She chose that moment to make her presence known. Tom immediately jumped to his feet, almost toppling the barstool he'd been sitting on. "K-Kathryn…you're up."

Chakotay rounded the bar to see her. He wondered just how much she had overheard. "How are you feeling?"

The corner of her mouth quirked upwards as she looked between the two men. She felt…something for them that she couldn't quite name, but it made her feel good. "Oh, I think you'd find my vital signs have all returned to normal." She watched Tom swallow convulsively and enjoyed the moment of putting the younger man on the spot. She had a feeling it didn't happen all that often, but she sobered quickly. "I'm sorry you had to see me like that. It doesn't happen all that often, but it was…nice to wake up in a bed."

Chakotay seemed to understand how uncomfortable of an admission that had been for her. "Would you like something to eat? B'Elanna took the munchkin home for her lunch and a nap."

"She gets cranky without a nap," Tom commented. "Trust me, it's not something you want to witness."

Kathryn gave him a smile before answering Chakotay. "Sure, a sandwich or something would be nice."

"Coming right up." He gave Tom a significant look as he moved back towards the main part of the kitchen.

Tom offered the barstool he'd been sitting on. "So, uh, what was that earlier anyway?"

The cabinet door Chakotay had just opened slammed shut with a loud bang, but Kathryn just raised an eyebrow at the question. "Just clear the table and go straight for the eight ball, Mister Paris? Not very subtle." He blinked as though she'd hit him between the eyes. "And you, Chakotay? I suppose you're wondering as well."

Chakotay walked over and slid a plate of food in front of her. "It looked almost like you were having a panic attack, but I'm a bit more curious as to what triggered it."

The sandwich and chips he'd placed in front of her looked good, but she was suddenly no longer hungry. She looked up at him. "Champagne."

The surprise on Chakotay's face was plain to see. "You want champagne?"

Kathryn shook her head. "No. I don't want…you gave me champagne."

The two men exchanged a confused look.

She growled in frustration as she tried to put her thoughts in order. "You were wearing a tuxedo, you gave me a glass of champagne, and then your hand was on my shoulder and I was back here. Standing in the living room before I…" she gestured towards the bathroom. "Anyway, that's what I saw."

It was silent as they all tried to sort through what she was trying to say.

"Well," Chakotay started, feeling utterly unsure, "I have brought you champagne or its Delta Quadrant equivalent several times over the years at functions and such."

Tom was frowning. "But at all those you would've been wearing your dress uniform."

Kathryn looked between the two of them. "He was wearing a tuxedo. I saw it clearly." She jutted her chin in Tom's direction. "And so were you."

"Wait, we're talking about a memory here," Tom clarified. "You're saying you saw both of us, wearing tuxedos, and there's champagne?"

With the idea that it was a memory, Kathryn inexplicably felt herself becoming more resistant to the idea. "Yes."

"Are there other people there?" Chakotay asked. "Did you see…B'Elanna?"

She knew if she closed her eyes she'd be able to see the vision she'd witnessed earlier clearly, but she didn't want to. It would be…painful. If she'd learned anything during her captivity, she'd learned that. "I might have."

Chakotay glanced at Tom. "Are there a lot of people in this…vision?"

An involuntary flash of shimmering gowns, crystal lights and smiling faces surfaced, and Kathryn flinched against it, trying to force the sight out of her mind.

"Kathryn?"

"Yes! Okay," she snapped at them, "there are _hundreds_ of people! They're all dancing and laughing. Applauding…"

"Are they the people from the photo album?" Chakotay asked as gently as he could.

The more they talked about it, the easier the vision came to her. She closed her eyes, steeling herself for the inevitable headache that would follow. But she could see them more clearly now. The bald man that Miral had referred to as the Doctor. The tall, buxom blonde woman that was, according to Miral, the only non-scary Borg. Uncle Harry who bore no resemblance at all to Tom or B'Elanna. B'Elanna in a shimmering teal dress standing next to Tom who was looking handsome, his tuxedo jacket missing but wearing a black vest over his dress shirt.

Kathryn nodded. "Yes. They're all there."

"Do you happen to see a large, melting ice sculpture, by any chance?" Tom asked.

If Kathryn thought the question was odd, it really surprised her when she saw exactly what he was describing. Her eyes flew open. "How did you know that?"

Tom exchanged another knowing look with Chakotay before he answered her question, "That was three years ago, the night of Voyager's Welcome Home Gala after spending seven years in the Delta Quadrant."

Chakotay looked grim. "And until we found you in that bar six months ago, it was the last night any of us saw you alive. You disappeared sometime early the next morning."

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><p>Kathryn sat on the edge of the couch, massaging her temples. Unsurprisingly, she had a headache. The memory, if it was indeed a memory, of the banquet hadn't been painful to recall, but the insanity of the entire situation was causing her no less grief. How could it be true? Seven years in the Delta Quadrant captaining a starship across 70,000 light years only to be home in the arms of her family for a mere week before disappearing for three years. Her mother must have been devastated.<p>

Chakotay cleared his throat, and she looked up to see him approaching her from the kitchen. "Sorry, I didn't want to startle you."

She gave him a weary look. "How can it be true, Chakotay?"

He wanted to sit down next to her on the couch, but chose instead to sit across from her on the ottoman. "What do you remember?"

Kathryn scoffed and rubbed a hand across her forehead. "I remember…waking up to darkness. Pain…everything hurt, and I didn't know why." She snorted and shook her head. "My first memory is realizing I _had_ no memory."

Chakotay resisted the urge to take her hand in his.

"I mean, I _knew_ stuff. When I finally heard people talking, I could understand them. I could read, operate a PADD, that sort of thing…I knew who I was – well, I knew my name," she corrected herself. "I had a sense of self, but I knew…nothing of Starfleet or my family…my past." Her eyebrows pulled together as she concentrated. "When I did see people, it didn't shock me to see non-humans. Space, physics, science…they were all familiar concepts to me. It's strange, the stuff I knew and the stuff they…erased."

"Stole," Chakotay emphasized. "Whoever did this…they left you all of your skills, but they _stole_ you."

Tom pushed himself off the door frame he'd been leaning against and moved further into the room with them. "I hate to play devil's advocate here, but we don't know for a fact that someone did this to her. It could be the result of an accident."

"No." Chakotay immediately discarded that possibility. "It's too…specific. An accident would have left gaps of memory or erased entire skill sets. This is too precise."

"Knowledge and ability with no emotional anchors to hold you back," Tom acknowledged grimly.

Kathryn nodded, her hand tightening into a fist. "They wanted me to do something for them, but I told them no," she chuckled darkly. "They didn't like that."

"Wait," Chakotay stopped her. "Do you know who did this to you?"

"I told them no," Kathryn repeated in a whisper.

Chakotay looked worriedly over his shoulder where it seemed Kathryn's gaze had focused. "Kathryn?" She didn't acknowledge him and he glanced nervously at Tom, who gave him a slight nod. Chakotay put his hand on her knee and said her name more forcefully. "Kathryn."

She jumped slightly, her blue eyes locking on his. "I told them _no_."

"_Captain Janeway, may we have a moment of your time?"_

_The laughter that seemed to have been flowing endlessly from Kathryn Janeway since the banquet had started slowly faded away, and she let Harry see her eye roll before she turned away from him and his parents to face the two newcomers. _

"_Gentlemen," she eyed the two grey-chested officers, her glance immediately taking in the gold trim on their dress uniforms that identified them as security, "is there a problem?"_

_The two officers exchanged a glance. "No problem, Captain," the commander took a step towards her, "but we need to speak with you about an urgent matter."_

"_Now?" Kathryn looked around at the gathering. It was a sea of friends, family, and upper echelon Starfleet. Everywhere she looked she saw smiles, embraces, champagne, and a wonderful crisscross of formal wear with everything from dress uniforms to tuxedos to…some bizarre outfit that Chell was wearing that could have been borrowed from Neelix's closet. Despite it being on Earth, the gathering felt wonderfully like events they'd always held on Voyager. Even after a week, it still felt surreal to finally be home, but her smile this evening hadn't left her face since Chakotay had escorted her inside. It was his fault actually that she couldn't stop smiling like a schoolgirl. Moments before they'd made their entrance, he'd abruptly pulled her into the coat closet, wrapped his arms around her, and promptly kissed the daylights out of her until her knees had gone weak. _

_She had incredibly high hopes for what the end of the evening would bring._

"_Our apologies," the commander offered, not sounding the least bit sorry and bringing Kathryn's thoughts abruptly back to their conversation, "but it's vitally important that we speak with you."_

_She frowned at them, her smile finally dimming. "What's this all about?"_

_The two men glanced at each other again. "We'd rather not discuss it here."_

_Putting one hand on her hip, she made it clear she wasn't going anywhere without more information._

_The commander straightened perceptibly. "You're needed, Captain."_

"_For a mission?" she scoffed._

"_Yes, ma'am," the lieutenant assured her quite seriously._

_Her eyes narrowed as she studied them. "Who sent you?"_

"_I'd rather not discuss that here, ma'am."_

_Kathryn scanned the crowd and caught more than one person looking in their direction. Looking past the two officers, she could see Tom and his father standing together talking to Admiral Patterson. Patterson inclined his head to her. The anger she'd felt at the beginning of the evening flared up, but she was determined to not let this ruin her evening. "No, I don't think so." _

_The lieutenant glanced at his commander. "I beg your pardon, ma'am?"_

"_You can remind your superiors that I have already told them I will consider their request and get back to them." The commander began to interrupt and she spoke over him, putting a bit of steel in her voice so they'd know she was serious. "__After __tonight. Tonight is about Voyager and her crew, and I will not let this matter take precedence over that."_

_She started to turn away but the commander caught hold of her arm. He quickly let go when she glared at him. "Captain, I beg your pardon, but time is a significant factor."_

_Glancing around the room again as she tried to hold onto her temper, she saw Tom was now walking back towards B'Elanna and the baby, the Doctor was chatting with Samantha Wildman's husband, Owen and Patterson were chatting with her mother, and no one was paying any real attention to her and the two men standing in front of her. A few people smiled as she caught their eye but that was all. "This mission…it's going to be rather involved, isn't it?"_

"_The situation is…complicated, Captain. We'll brief you on what you need to know once we're away from here."_

"_It'll be time away from Earth? Away from my family that I haven't seen in seven years?" _

"_Unfortunately, so," the commander answered, missing the note of danger in her voice that anyone who knew her better would have heard. And wisely acknowledged. "We hope that your involvement will only last a few months at most."_

"_A few months," she repeated. Her smoldering anger at the request now blossomed into a raging inferno. The admirals she'd spoken with in the afternoon had deliberately made it seem like it would be only a couple of weeks. She clucked her tongue against her teeth. "I see."_

_The realization had been a bit delayed, but the two officers seemed to recognize the threat they were now facing. The lieutenant also noticed that more than one of her officers had begun to take notice of their trio. "Captain, it would be best if we could make a discreet exit."_

"_Yes, I think you should leave." She bit out the words. "Now." _

_The commander was not happy. "This mission needs you, Captain."_

"_No."_

"_You have a duty__–__"_

_Kathryn closed the distance between her and the commander. "I have done my duty for the past seven years, Commander. I have put duty before everything else in my life. Everything. For seven years." She fixed a smile on her face for anyone who may have been observing them from afar, but her eyes held the commander's and her tone remained hard. "I'm home now. I'm going to take a well deserved vacation. I am going to live my life. And then, maybe, after a few months, I might consider putting on my uniform again and picking up the mantle and the duties that come with it."_

"_But Captain__–__" the lieutenant tried._

"_I said no, gentlemen!" She backed up a step. "Are we clear?"_

_The commander saw two of her officers heading towards them, and he gave Janeway a small nod of his head. "Thank you for your time, Captain."_

_The two men turned as one, disappearing into the crowd just as Chakotay reached her side. He handed her a glass of champagne. "Who were you talking to?"_

_She took a sip of the bubbly liquid before answering him, giving herself a minute to calm down. Then she gave him a genuine smile and hooked her arm through his. "No one important."_

"I think I remember that," Tom said, his forehead wrinkled in concentration, "but by the time I got to you, Chakotay was there and you were smiling again. I just thought they had been reporters or something."

The fury in Chakotay's chest felt like a raging beast that he was barely keeping under control. He'd thought about and scrutinized every detail of that night over the past three years. He'd remembered the two security officers walking away from her, but she'd assured him it had been nothing. After she'd disappeared, he'd brought it up to Owen, wondering if there'd been some sort of security threat against her that night, but Owen had assured him there'd been nothing. They'd probably just been another couple of Starfleet gophers, clamoring for her attention. "Were those the men that took you?" he asked.

"I don't know," she admitted, her eyes registering that she could hear the tremor in his voice. "I don't remember what happened next or later. I just remember waking up."

"Did they tell you their names?"

She shook her head; her frustration at her own inability to help was growing.

"That's no problem," Tom said, surprising both of them. "There were so many photographers taking pictures at the banquet. There's no way their picture wasn't taken."

Chakotay was nodding, but Kathryn looked between the two men. "I already know what they look like, how will finding their picture help?"

"We'll run it through facial recognition software. Dad will have access to all the Starfleet files. We should know who they are within minutes."

Kathryn glanced at Chakotay and he reassured her, "His dad's an admiral, Owen Paris, he was your mentor actually." He saw the objection immediately cross her face and he held up a hand. "We won't tell him why we need to know. We'll come up with a cover story."

Tom watched as the woman seated in front of him immediately relaxed. Her trust in Chakotay, whether she truly remembered him or not, was fairly evident to see. He'd always suspected that the two people in front of him had gotten together that fateful night, but he'd never been brave enough to come right out and ask. Kathryn got to her feet, one hand rubbing at the muscles of her neck while the other patted Chakotay's chest as she walked past him. Tom suddenly felt like there were one too many people in the room.

"Well," he clapped his hands together and rubbed them, "I'm going to go get started looking at pictures. See if I can't pull up the archived footage and find our two mystery guests."

Kathryn barely acknowledged his departure as she stared out the window. Chakotay got to his feet and tidied up the empty mugs, but quickly running out of things to do, he came to a stop a few steps behind her. He wanted to say something to reassure her but nothing came to mind that could possibly help the situation.

"Well," she sighed, breaking the silence, "now you know my secret."

He really didn't think that he did. "Which one?"

She snorted lightly and turned to face him. "Surely, you didn't miss that little tidbit about who I think is responsible for my…problems."

"Starfleet?" Chakotay shrugged. "It hadn't occurred to me before now, but I think when you start to remember me you'll find I don't put Starfleet on too high of a pedestal. I've had my differences with them."

Keeping her gaze locked on his, she asked, "You really think…I'll remember you?"

He nodded and took what he hoped was a reassuring step closer. "I do."

She nodded too, took a deep breath, and clucked her tongue. "Well, you've told me a bit about your past; I suppose it's only fair that I do the same."

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><p>.<p> 


	10. Chapter 10

Notes: RL got a little busy yesterday so I had to play catch up today. I'm behind on saying my thank you's but I assumed you'd rather I get the next update ready instead :) So, Thank You everyone! And hope you continue to enjoy!

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><p>An hour later, Chakotay looked up as Kathryn wandered back into the living room, carrying a glass of water in one hand and a stack of brownies in the other. Despite her earlier declaration, she had yet to tell him anything. She was stalling, and he knew from experience that Kathryn Janeway could stall with the best of them.<p>

She'd begun by explaining that she needed to use the comm. console to leave a message for Trevor, letting him know she was still alive before she could start telling him about the things she remembered. Then she'd strayed into the kitchen and commenced looking over Tom's shoulder as he sifted through photos. As soon as Chakotay had trailed after her into the kitchen, she'd left the room saying she had to go to the bathroom.

Tom had raised his eyebrows and suggested that maybe he'd be able to search better if he didn't have quite so much help. And both men had agreed that B'Elanna would be a much better assistant than his current one. Once he'd left, Chakotay had pulled a tray of brownies out of stasis that Gretchen had dropped off a week earlier and laid them out on the bar. Then he went into the living room and took a seat, calmly sipping a drink and cracking open one of his hardcover novels. He'd already read it several times and could easily quote entire passages, but Kathryn didn't know that.

He'd idly flipped through an entire chapter before she emerged from the back of the house. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her pause when she spotted him. "Tom went home and is going to enlist B'Elanna's help with the pictures."

Kathryn glanced towards the front door and looked like she desperately wished she could follow the pilot out the door.

Chakotay pretended not to notice and turned another page of his book. "I set out some snacks in the kitchen and there's another pot of coffee ready to go if you want it. Make yourself at home."

He'd given her an avenue of escape and she took it, eagerly making her way towards the kitchen. He wondered how long she would draw this out by staying in there. After ten minutes, he began to actually read the book instead of just pretending to.

In the fourth year of their journey, Kathryn had managed to avoid him for an entire week. On a ship as small as Voyager, that was quite an accomplishment considering they both worked on the bridge and literally lived next door to each other. He'd tried for five days to pin her down to a single location, but it was only after he stopped trying to reach her that she'd come looking for him.

He sincerely hoped it wouldn't take her that long to come out of the kitchen though.

"Did you make these?" she asked, referring to the rather tall stack of brownies she carried.

He shook his head and closed the book, marking his place with one finger held between the pages. "I take it you like them?"

"Like them? I could eat the whole plate full of them." She bit into one, her face morphing into a look of happiness that he had previously thought was reserved only for coffee. "These aren't replicated are they?"

"No," he hesitated in mentioning who had in fact made them. He wasn't sure how she'd take it.

Luckily, she saved him the trouble. After sucking a string of caramel off her thumb, she said, "I've finally been able to figure it out. Six months."

Chakotay was completely lost. "I'm sorry, figure what out, Kathryn?"

"While I was being…held captive, time lost all meaning to me, and not being able to remember my past I had no frame of reference for how long I had been kept there. But now given that you say the banquet was about three years ago?" she paused for confirmation and he nodded. "So, six months ago you found me, before that I had been on the run for two years, which leaves me with six months. That's how long they held me."

A simple "oh" was all Chakotay could manage. If she had been kept in a single place for those first crucial six months she'd been missing, it explained a lot. Starfleet hadn't found a single clue in their investigation into her disappearance, and they'd allegedly turned the quadrant inside out looking for her. The majority of the work done to find her had been in that first six months, and although her case had remained open after that, by the end of the first year, there had been no one still actively looking except the Voyagers.

Kathryn polished off the brownie she'd been working on and set the remainder of the stack down on the coffee table. She took a sip of water and shook her head. "It sure seemed like a hell of a lot longer than that."

Chakotay could only agree with that sentiment. When she stayed quiet for more than a minute, he softly asked, "Can you tell me about it?"

Kathryn studied her hands. "They did everything they could think of to break me. When I first woke up…in that room, all I was able to do was lie there and wish that I was dead. To this day, I don't know if the pain was all in my head or if my entire body ached but it really didn't matter. It blotted out all other thought. In those first hours…days, the front door could have been open five feet in front of me and I wouldn't have been able to escape. I could barely breathe much less move or formulate any kind of rational thought.

"And then there were people talking over me, putting their hands on me, it was torture. It was like every single nerve ending in my body was flayed open and they were trying to cauterize the wounds. Which I suppose they did," she looked up at Chakotay, her eyes reflecting the haunting memories. "After that first…incident…the pain began to fade, and that's when the real fun began."

The faraway look that had entered her eyes was replaced by something harder, and Chakotay tried to prepare himself for what he was about to hear.

"The room I was kept in was completely enclosed. No windows or doors. No vents. Just four walls, a ceiling and a floor." Kathryn snorted lightly. "And me. Despite the lack of obvious entry, they had complete control over the space, and I know they were monitoring me. Pitch blackness to blindingly bright light. High frequency noise, complete silence interrupted by incredibly loud sounds…"

"Sleep deprivation?" he offered, wanting her to know he understood.

She nodded. "Oh yes, but they did so much more than that. They controlled the temperature of the room. They controlled the _gravity_. Sometimes I could barely breathe or lift my arm. Once, I woke up with my nose touching the ceiling. It was all very…disconcerting." Pausing, she deliberated telling him the worst moment. She had to steel herself against the memory, as it still had her waking up in the middle of the night silently screaming.

"Right before they took me out of the room for the first time…they uh–" she took a breath, "they made me drown." She looked away from him, up towards the ceiling. "At the very top of the walls, there was a gap. It was barely discernible, looked more like a shadow, but that's where the water came in through. It wasn't particularly fast just a thin sheen of water covering the wall, flowing down it from the ceiling and spreading out across the floor with nowhere for it to go. It was…insidious." Her fingernails dug into the palm of her hand, but she kept talking. "I had to watch as it climbed up me, past my ankles, my knees, above my waist…and it was cold. S_o…_cold. I had _never_ been so…afraid.

"It was the first time I screamed at them," she admitted. "Because I knew…I _knew_ they weren't going to stop. There was nowhere to go. I couldn't escape it." She paused, swallowing thickly. "And then I was against the ceiling, scrambling to get that _last_ lungful of air before the water…" Kathryn closed her eyes briefly, opening them almost immediately as she remembered that closing them would offer her no reprieve. "The silence under the water was absolute…overwhelming…and then, I hadn't even thought about it really, but the lights in the room…they shut them off. The pitch black…the pressure building in my chest. It was like being buried alive. "

Oddly enough she had gotten past what she considered the worst part and she could actually look at Chakotay again. She shrugged. "But I _had_ to take a breath, my lungs were burning…and that cold, freezing liquid rushed into me, into my lungs, filling me...I drowned."

Chakotay felt numb as she fell silent. Her treatment had been even more insidious than she realized. Whoever had done this had known about her past, they'd known how her father and fiancé had died. They'd known Kathryn's worst fears of having let them drown beneath the polar ice cap. He felt nauseous. There were not that many people who would have had such access to her personal history.

"Anyway," Kathryn interrupted his thoughts, "the next thing I knew I was coughing and gagging and spitting up water for what felt like hours. I was shivering, lying in a puddle on a white floor, with several men standing over me. I don't know how long I'd been in that damn cell of a room, but I was about to find out that I would've rather stayed there because apparently they were just getting started."

He tried to gauge how she was doing. The intensity with which she was remembering these events seemed to be mercurial. Sometimes she had her fists clenched so tight he could see her knuckles turning white, but then seconds later she was distant. "Do you want to take a break?"

"I'm fine." She shrugged. "Do you?"

He shook his head and wished he truly felt comfortable with her continuing. He didn't, but there was no way he was going to ask her to stop now that she was talking.

"Well, they were kind enough to let me catch my breath…at least at first," she said wryly. "I'd managed to pull myself up to a sitting position, even though I was shivering still. They asked me my name. I told them. They nodded. Then they asked me who my parents were. Automatically, I tried to think of their names and I felt pain like an electric shock behind my eyes. It took my breath away it was so sharp and felt so much like those first moments when I had woken up. When my entire skull had felt like it was burning." She gave him a humorless smile. "It pains me to admit it, but it took me awhile to figure it out. They'd ask me series after series of questions. What's the warp threshold for an Intrepid class ship? How long does it take to reach Vulcan from Earth while traveling at warp five? What are the operational temperature ranges for a trans-luminal processor? And I could answer every single question, but then they'd throw in a question like where was I born or did I have any siblings, and I'd end up on the floor in the fetal position gasping for breath." She shook her head. "It's instinctual to try and think back to answer questions like that, I barely had time to process the question before my mind was trying to answer it. I learned quickly enough to never actively try and remember things, but they used that…trigger against me to their utmost advantage."

It wasn't becoming any clearer to Chakotay why they had taken her or what their intentions had ultimately been, but he was beginning to understand at least what part of their process had been. Erase her identity and convince her to never go looking for it. The fact that she had been on the run from them for at least two years but still had no clue about her past, it was clear that they had been successful.

"After they tested my knowledge of the scientific, they wanted to test my…abilities."

Chakotay felt a shiver run down his back. Something about the way she said it didn't make him think they tried out her piloting skills. "Which abilities?"

She picked at a brownie, tearing chunks off of it. "Whatever it is that they wanted me to become, it became apparent that if I couldn't defend myself, survive on my own, I was of no use to them." She dusted the crumbs from her fingers. "I assume it was a holodeck. Jungles, caves, cities, abandoned buildings. Scenario after scenario. Me against an enemy. Romulan, Klingon, Human. Sometimes it was one on one. Sometimes it was more. But there were no…safety measures. Kill or be killed. Survival of the fittest at its most base degree."

He gestured to her face. "Is that how you got your scars?"

Her hand automatically went to her neck and the line that spanned half way around it. "These? No…actually, not these."

His stomach clenched at that ominous-sounding distinction. "But you survived?"

"More often than not," she said, a dark sort of pride in her tone. "But not always."

Chakotay frowned. "I don't follow."

After a moment's hesitation, she sat up straight and lifted up the bottom of her shirt to reveal a jagged scar that spanned half of her abdomen. "Once they deemed you had received a mortal wound, they'd pull you out." She quickly pulled the shirt back down, her face flushing slightly. "Pain was a lesson though. So you'd wake up in their sickbay, hurting, not fully healed, but still alive."

"Well," he tried, gamely, "you always were a good fighter. I guess that came in handy."

Kathryn picked at the cuticle on one of her nails. "More than once I found dried blood under my fingernails…even though I was back in my cell." She looked up at him and held his eye. "If it was holographic blood, why was it still there hours later?"

The nauseous feeling swept over Chakotay again at the implication. Had there been others there at the same facility? Had Kathryn really killed them? The hardness he could see in her eyes suggested that even if she had killed, it wasn't something she was losing that much sleep over.

Kathryn watched him silently work through the ramifications of what she'd just told him. She knew the feeling well. "What do you say we take that break now?"

* * *

><p>Chakotay moved easily around the kitchen, cleaning up their dinner dishes. He had done most of the talking while they'd eaten, telling her stories of their time on Voyager. He'd kept it light, talking about talent nights and holodeck adventures. She'd asked about Tom and B'Elanna's wedding, but he could tell she was tired. The fatigue hadn't faded from her eyes, and her recall of the past had been trying enough for him; he could only imagine how hard it had been on her.<p>

When she'd tried to help him clean up, he'd suggested she go relax on the couch. She'd given him a good frown to indicate she didn't like being babied, but then she'd retreated with only a token protest. Glancing around the kitchen, he wondered if she'd want more coffee tonight. He certainly didn't need any. He was still keyed up wishing he could inflict even a tenth of the pain that had been dealt to her on those responsible. He doubted they'd be able to withstand even that much.

Walking around the bar and towards the living room, he almost called her name when he didn't see her, but then he saw her boots lying on the floor. He smiled as he walked further into the room and saw her curled into the overstuffed cushions on the couch. She was asleep. Her too-red hair was fanned out across the pillows, and he thought she looked so much younger in sleep. Almost like she had when he'd first met her all those years ago. He shook his head at himself as he covered her with a blanket. That was just fanciful thinking and he knew it. None of them resembled their younger selves from a decade ago, but she did finally resemble the woman he'd last seen three years ago in the pale moonlight of her Indiana bedroom.

He straightened and looked around for a PADD so he could leave her a message, letting her know where he'd gone if she woke up. Sleep would not come easy this night, but he knew it wouldn't come at all if he didn't work out at least some of his demons.

Arriving at the hangar, or as Tom affectionately called it The Garage, Chakotay turned on the lights. Tom and B'Elanna had installed their own holodeck for ship design and Tom's holonovels. Chakotay didn't use it a lot, but he did have his gym program loaded. He'd comm'd their house to let them know he'd be there, and so he wasn't surprised when about thirty minutes into his workout B'Elanna showed up. Silently, she indicated the heavy bag and he moved over to it. She couldn't brace it as well as Ayala or Tom, but she was no pushover either, and he was glad to be able to do some serious pounding on it.

An hour later, his arms felt like limp noodles, and he knew he'd have to ice his hands when he got home. B'Elanna didn't look much better than he felt. Her hair was disheveled and the side of her face was reddened and puffy. He frowned at her, and took her by the chin, examining her. "B'Elanna, how the hell were you holding the bag?"

"I might've leaned into the last few punches," she said grouchily, pulling away from his grasp. "It's nothing. I'm fine."

He shook his head and sat heavily down on the bench next to the boxing ring. "Tom won't appreciate me beating up his wife."

She shrugged. After an extended silence, she asked, "How is she?"

Chakotay scrubbed a towel over his hair. "You know those scars on her chin and neck?"

B'Elanna gave him an exasperated look. "Uh, yeah I noticed them."

"They aren't the only ones she has."

She frowned for a moment before understanding dawned in her eyes. "Oh…you mean…"

He nodded. "I just…it didn't even occur to me to think but now, I can't stop wondering…how many others does she have?"

They sat in silence for several minutes contemplating that thought until B'Elanna slapped her thighs and got to her feet. "Come on. Let's go."

Chakotay frowned as she headed back over towards the heavy bag. "No thanks, Torres. I'm done for the night."

"No, you're not," she said, stretching one arm across her chest. "It's your turn to hold the bag, or believe me, Tom will be _really_ unhappy with you."

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><p>.<p> 


	11. Chapter 11

Notes: It's Friday. Might as well get a twofer :) There will be an update tomorrow but not at my usual early morning time. I'm sleeping in ;)

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><p>"Damn," Kathryn muttered, reading a PADD that was lying on top of the bar. She'd been idly scrolling through a Ferengi Trading post that she and Trevor used to communicate while sipping her first morning coffee. She hadn't been expecting to see a reply from him quite this soon. He wanted to see her.<p>

Kathryn glanced towards the back of the house. She could hear the water running through the pipes so she knew Chakotay was awake and in the shower. She also knew that he and Trevor should not meet again…at least not yet, but it had always been difficult to tell her brother no. She also knew that if she didn't respond to Trevor's message, he'd be knocking at the front door regardless.

While she deliberated the message she'd leave for him, she picked up one of the brownies from last night and dunked it in her coffee. The damned things were addictive and she'd added them to her "coffee only" breakfast this morning after discovering the ones that she had left sitting out all night had become slightly hard.

Last night had been interesting to say the least. She'd woken in the middle of the night to a dark house, but immediately the soft sound of snoring had reached her ears. Chakotay had been asleep in the recliner. She'd sat up to look more closely at him and had felt a blanket slip from her shoulders. She'd talked for over an hour earlier in the evening, and the longer she'd talked, the darker Chakotay's face had become. It had been akin to watching a thunderhead rolling in over the fields. And she'd barely scratched the surface concerning what she'd been through.

Strange as it was for her, she'd actually been tempted to stay on the couch, to be in the same room as him, but nature and the big fluffy bed in the back room had been calling her name. Moving quietly, she'd covered him with the blanket and retreated to the back of the house. Stumbling into the bedroom, her face still damp from the scrubbing she'd given it while she'd been in the bathroom, she'd almost gone straight back to bed. Spying the dresser though, she'd decided to find something better to sleep in. She'd found a large tank top and a pair of cut-off sweats in the second drawer that had fit the bill. They were ill fitting since they were obviously for someone his size, but they were clean and comfortable. And for the second night in a row, Kathryn had slept soundly.

Now, sitting at the bar with only the robe thrown over the clothes she'd slept in, she was seriously contemplating looking herself up on the computer. The stories Chakotay had told her over dinner made her think for the first time that she may actually find something about herself that wasn't an arrest decree as she'd always assumed.

She heard a door open and knew Chakotay must be finished in the shower. She really needed to send a reply message to Trevor before Chakotay joined her in the kitchen. He knew she was in contact with her brother, but she also knew he didn't like the idea and it really wasn't a discussion she wanted to have this early in the morning. Just as she decided on the vague wording she'd send to Trevor to keep him occupied for at least another day or so, she was interrupted by a gasp and the sound of glass shattering.

Kathryn was on her feet in an instant, her hand automatically going for the weapon she usually kept at the small of her back only to swear at herself when she remembered what she was wearing. Luckily, her attacker hardly appeared to be a threat.

An older woman with graying hair stood staring open-mouthed at Kathryn. A shattered platter of brownies lay scattered on the floor at her feet. Slowly, Kathryn straightened out of the fighting crouch she'd assumed. The woman looked incredibly familiar, and her blue eyes searched Kathryn's face with an intensity Kathryn had only ever seen in the mirror.

Or from Trevor.

The woman took two steps towards her and Kathryn immediately moved back, holding up a hand warningly. "Don't."

"_Kathryn_?" the older woman breathed, confusion obvious in her face. "Is it…_you_?"

"Kathryn!" Chakotay came rushing out of the back bedroom, wearing only a pair of jeans, and his hair still dripping water in his face. He slid to a stop at the older woman's side and Kathryn could see the "oh shit" expression slide across his face. "Gretchen-"

The older woman turned on him. "Chakotay!" She took in his bare chest and feet and the confusion in her features morphed quickly into anger. Her hands settled on her hips. "Just what the hell is going on here?"

He immediately had his hands up in a placating gesture. "Gretchen, please calm down. It's not what it looks like."

"What it _looks_ like!" Gretchen repeated back to him incredulously. "My daughter, who has been missing for three years, is wearing your robe and you only have half your clothes on! What the hell am I supposed to think? Were the two of you so busy you couldn't call to let me know my daughter was back from the dead?"

Kathryn heard Chakotay call the woman by name and only then realized that this diminutive woman that was poking her finger into Chakotay's chest was supposedly her mother.

"It's not like that," he insisted, valiantly maintaining his position. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but…Kathryn isn't really herself right now."

Gretchen looked suspiciously at Kathryn, the glare in her eyes softening as she did. "Well, her hair's a little bit darker–"

"You're the one that made the brownies?" Kathryn asked, gesturing towards the mess on the floor.

Gretchen nodded shakily, confused by the seeming non sequitor, and heart sore at the sound of her daughter's voice. Tearing her gaze away from Kathryn, she looked back at Chakotay with questions mounting in her eyes. "Chakotay…what–"

"B'Elanna and I first found her six months ago–"

"_Six_ months!"

"But we weren't able to bring her home with us because…well," he faltered in his explanation. "She didn't…uh…the meeting didn't really go well."

"I tried to kill them," Kathryn supplied.

Gretchen was shocked. "_Both_ of them?"

"Well…not at the same time," Kathryn admitted, feeling a bit ashamed about the whole thing when Gretchen's eyes widened. She glanced at Chakotay and shrugged her shoulders at him. "Sorry."

Chakotay put his hands on the older woman's shoulders. "Gretchen, Kathryn has no memory of her past."

Gretchen looked from one to the other, trying desperately to get a better read on the situation. "I think…I should sit down."

* * *

><p>Sitting across from each other at the dining table, the two Janeway women regarded each other silently. Kathryn was completely guarded, arms folded across her chest, shields up and a closed off expression that did not encourage questions. Gretchen's expression warred between gloriously happy her daughter was once again counted amongst the living and severely troubled. Chakotay, now fully dressed, was just trying to not burn breakfast while keeping an eye on both of them.<p>

Kathryn sighed and leaned back in her chair. "Just go ahead and ask me whatever it is that's on your mind."

Gretchen folded her arms over one another on the table and leaned forward. She didn't bother pretending that she didn't know what Kathryn was talking about; she just wasn't sure what she wanted to ask first. "What…I mean, are you _okay_? Are you safe?"

That hadn't been the question she'd been expecting and Kathryn shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "I'm fine…but safe? No, probably not."

"You're safe here, Kathryn," Chakotay insisted.

Both women glanced at him and Kathryn's expression was sad. "No. I'm not, and the longer I stay here, the more people know that I'm here…" She shook her head. "I'm putting you all in danger."

He gave up on the cooking and moved the pan he'd been using off the stovetop. "Why do you say that?"

She cocked her head to the side. "You really think the people that did this to me want me remembering? Showing up on their doorstep, reminding them what they tried to do to me? What they ultimately failed to do to me?" She shook her head again. "The only reason I'm not dead already is because I have stayed the hell away from this system."

Gretchen looked between the two of them and could tell that Chakotay accepted what Kathryn was saying. A million questions rushed through her mind about what exactly Kathryn had been through, but at least one thing seemed clear enough to her. "Well then you should leave…get out of here. Go where you're safe. If hiding out is what's keeping you alive then that's what you do."

Kathryn felt a surge of warmth at the older woman's protectiveness of her. "It's not that easy anymore."

Chakotay stood near the head of the table. "We want to find out who did this to her."

"At the expense of her life?" Gretchen demanded, clearly agitated.

Kathryn leaned forward, resting her hands on the table. "I only have memories of the past three years. If everything Chakotay has told me is true, they've _already_ taken my life. I want it back."

The anger that had infused Gretchen moments before drained from her expression, leaving her looking much older. She reached out a hand, placing it over Kathryn's. "I don't want to lose you again. I _can't_. It's already been too many times already."

Kathryn's first instinct had been to draw back when Gretchen touched her, but she hadn't, and now she turned her own hands over, curling her fingers around the older woman's. "I want to remember you and right now…I don't. Without those memories, I'm not really your daughter."

Chakotay held his breath. The pain in Gretchen's eyes was palpable, and it was a pain he completely understood. But the older woman's chin came up and she gave a curt nod of acceptance before excusing herself from the kitchen. He watched her disappear into the bathroom before he dared look at Kathryn.

"I wish she hadn't shown up here," Kathryn muttered quietly.

"While you were getting dressed she told me that she thought I was headed out on another mission to look for you," he explained. "She was coming over to talk me out of going."

"She'd given up on me."

Chakotay shook his head slightly. "No, I don't think she'd ever do that, but she wanted me to. She didn't want me to waste my life on what she amounted to an old woman's dreams."

Kathryn didn't reply, her eyes still fixed on the spot where Gretchen had disappeared.

"She's tough," Chakotay tried assuring her. "She'll be okay."

Kathryn gave him a sidelong look. "I have no doubt about that. She is my mother after all."

Chakotay looked at her with a bit of surprise. "Do you remember her?"

"No, but there's…something there." She leaned back again, looking up at him fully. "I meant what I said. I want my memory back."

"We'll get it back," he nodded, "and we'll find out who's responsible." He hedged his next thought, knowing she wouldn't like what he wanted to suggest.

She saw him hesitate. "What?"

He sighed. "You hold all the answers. We need to get you examined. The Doctor–"

Kathryn was on her feet, pushing past him, before he could finish. "No."

"Kathryn–"

"No!" She slammed her coffee cup down on the bar. "I endured _doctors_ for six months in that hell I went through, Chakotay. I've been _examined_ enough for a lifetime."

He shook his head not quite understanding what she was saying. "You mean in the sickbay? After your fights? Kathryn, our Doctor…he isn't like that. He _cares_ about you."

"I'm _not…_those aren't the doctors I'm talking about." Her hands were fisted at her sides, her knuckles almost white, but her eyes held his. "Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up strapped down to a table? Completely exposed. Utterly defenseless. Because I do." Her voice trailed off as the memory surfaced and instead of clamping down on it, she closed her eyes, allowing it to wash over her. "There were several of them standing over me. Discussing me. They were worried…that I'd remember. That it wouldn't be strong enough. That _it_ wouldn't…hold."

Chakotay could barely breathe. Her voice had softened almost to a whisper but he'd heard her. "That what wouldn't be strong enough? What were they worried about, Kathryn?"

"_She'll talk…_

"…_knows command codes."_

"…_knows more than that."_

"_Everyone breaks…"_

"…_job to make sure she doesn't."_

"_Are you sure about this?"_

"They didn't want me to…talk." Kathryn frowned, trying to remember, to hear the doctors talking over her, but the harder she pushed the more garbled the memory became. She opened her eyes, growling in frustration. "I don't know…something about command codes. It's all mixed up."

"But it's there," Chakotay insisted. "Somewhere locked in your mind, you know everything that happened to you. I think you may even know why–"

"It's not like that," she argued. "I remember my time there. I know what they did to me."

"You remember what they did to you after you woke up," he countered, "but by your own admission you don't know how long you were aware of being there. I think before they took your memory you _knew_ why you were brought there. They _told_ you."

She paced the small area of the kitchen, shaking her head. "No. Why would they do that?"

"You said at the banquet, those two men that approached you, they wanted to talk to you about a mission. You refused." He waited for her to acknowledge that before he continued. "If they're the same ones that took you, they may have briefed you on the mission. Tried to convince you to go on it voluntarily."

"And then what? I said no and they forced me to do it anyway?" she asked incredulously.

He didn't answer her directly but that was exactly what he was thinking. The only problem with this theory was that he couldn't think of a possible mission that could be so important and that Kathryn would've turned down. "I think it's a possibility, and I think there's one sure way we can find out."

Chakotay thought for sure the possibility of an answer would move her to change her mind, but he was discouraged when he saw the set of her jaw and how her chin came up. Kathryn Janeway was digging in her heels.

"It's going to take a hell of a lot more than just a mere possibility before I allow some doctor to examine me."

Chakotay caught movement at his side and realized that he'd completely forgotten Gretchen was in the house. As she moved into the kitchen, he caught the wary look on Kathryn's face and knew she had forgotten too. Gretchen walked silently into the kitchen, stopping only when she stood less than a meter in front of her daughter. "I was listening to your conversation," she freely admitted. "Kathryn, do you trust this man?"

Gretchen indicated Chakotay and Kathryn once again shifted uncomfortably under the older woman's gaze. What was it about this woman that made her feel so completely insecure? "I haven't decided."

One of Gretchen's eyebrows rose imperiously. "Bullshit. And whether you remember or not, the Janeway family is from Indiana. We know bullshit when we smell it."

Kathryn was completely taken aback and found she had absolutely no response to that. Gretchen didn't seem to mind. "I don't know what your intentions were when you came here, but you stayed. More than one night if I have my facts straight. You wouldn't have done that if you didn't trust this man."

Kathryn glanced at Chakotay who was wisely remaining quiet. "What's your point?"

"I know this holographic doctor he's talking about. He's a better man than most I know that are made of blood and bone. And what's more, he's saved your life on more than one occasion as I understand it. You used to trust him yourself. Now, your memory being what it is right now, I know you don't believe that. You don't know what to believe and I can understand that," Gretchen admitted. "But if you're serious about getting your life back, you need to have your head examined. Chakotay trusts the Doctor. You need to decide, right now, whether or not you trust Chakotay. It's as simple as that."

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><p>.<p> 


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimers can be found in ch. 1 and notes as needed

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><p>"And you actually got her to agree to this?" Tom asked in surprise.<p>

"I didn't," Chakotay admitted, giving a nod of his head to the older woman bustling around in the kitchen. "Never underestimate the power of Gretchen Janeway."

"Ah, well as a rule I never underestimate anyone with the name Janeway," Tom quipped. "So when's Doc coming over?"

"After his normal end of shift. We didn't want anything to seem out of the ordinary."

"And does he know _why_ he's coming?"

Chakotay shook his head. "I wasn't about to tell him that over an open comm. line, especially not one that's going through Starfleet headquarters."

"Good point," Tom admitted.

Kathryn joined them in the living room. "What have you found out?"

Tom straightened at her entrance. It wasn't exactly the same as her calling for a report on the bridge, but she still cut straight to the point. "Considering how many holoimages were taken at the banquet, we actually had a pretty hard time finding our two mystery guests, but we were able to pull up two images with them." He handed Kathryn a PADD. "Do they look familiar?"

"That's them. But…" She frowned as she looked at the images and then recollection struck. She pointed at the commander. "He was there one day. The doctors asked me if I recognized him. I didn't."

Chaktoay accepted the PADD and looked at the two men. Whoever they were, they'd been smart enough to wear the dress uniforms of security officers, which would have gotten them in the door. "Was Owen able to identify them from the Starfleet database?"

Tom took the PADD back and pulled up two more files. "Here's where it gets interesting. This is Commander John Jones and Lieutenant Commander James Smith."

He handed the PADD to Janeway, and Chakotay moved so he could look over her shoulder at it. She shrugged, glancing at the profiles. "What am I supposed to see that's interesting?"

"Nothing," Tom replied, "and that's the point. There's absolutely nothing in their records of any interest. They both have perfectly boring records. They've moved up through the ranks at a normal pace. They've served on ships and stations as well as holding posts at Headquarters. Not a single reward, commendation, or write-up in their profiles. They've never done a single thing to get noticed in their entire careers – good or bad."

Kathryn glanced at Chakotay before looking back at Tom. "I'm not following."

"The records are fake," Tom explained, a bit disappointed that neither of them picked up on it. "Even their names are fake!"

Chakotay straightened back up. He was skeptical. "You can't prove that just by their records being unremarkable."

"Maybe not, but Dad thought it was odd, too. So he looked a little further. The ships that are listed on their profiles as them having served on…there's no record of them at all. Not a transporter log, a security report, not even a single trip to medical for an analgesic." He slapped his hands on his knees. "They're spooks."

At the unfamiliar term, Kathryn looked up from her study of the PADD. "Spooks?"

"Section 31." Tom was almost happy even though he knew he shouldn't be. "You know? Secret agents. Operatives. Spies."

"I think you've been watching too many ancient holonovels, Tom," Chakotay said, shaking his head.

Tom was undeterred. "Think about it. How do you explain that in hundreds of pictures from the banquet, these guys only showed up in two of them? How did these two unremarkable guys even get in there in the first place? Sure they had on security uniforms and could have made up some report or something, but not only did they get inside, they got all the way to Kathryn." He gestured at her. "She was the star attraction of the evening. Everyone in that place wanted to talk to her. Doesn't mean that they did. But those two guys did." He pointed at the PADD. "And what did they want? They wanted you to go on a mission."

"The kind of mission they didn't want to talk about," Kathryn finished for him. It definitely made a scary sort of sense. "What kind of missions does this section do?"

"Nobody really knows for sure," Tom admitted. "They're so damn secretive most people don't even know they exist."

Kathryn frowned. "How do you know so much about them?"

"I heard about them from a guy in New Zealand," he admitted a bit sheepishly. "He swore up and down they recruited him, and when his mission went bust, they abandoned him to get picked up by the authorities. He's serving thirty years."

"So when you say New Zealand, you mean that you were in prison with this person?" Kathryn asked.

The tips of Tom's ears reddened but Chakotay took up for him. "Tom made a mistake in his younger years, but you gave him a second chance. You're actually the one that got him out of prison, and you made him one of your officers."

She looked a little surprised but seemingly accepted that piece of information. "Okay," she gave her head a little shake. "So…what kind of crime did your source commit?"

Tom became serious again. "He was convicted of attempting to assassinate the President of the Federation."

* * *

><p>"Well, this is certainly a rogue's gallery," the Doctor's acerbic voice noted, looking around the kitchen at Tom, Chakotay, and Gretchen. "To what do I owe this pleasure? None of you seem to be broken or ailing?"<p>

"Your patient is behind you, Doc," Tom indicated with a nod of his head for the hologram to turn around.

The Doctor turned, half expecting to see B'Elanna or maybe even Miral, but the person he did see made him splutter. "Ca-Captain!"

Kathryn immediately backed up when he stepped forward, his arms raised to take her in a hug. She held up a hand in warning, but luckily he'd already seen the hesitation and stopped.

His medical programming immediately took in her physical condition. "You've been injured."

The look in her eyes grew instantly colder. "What do you know about it?"

"Easy, Kathryn," Chakotay said, easing between the two. "I think he's just referring to your scars." She accepted that with a small nod, but continued to eye the doctor warily. "Kathryn, this is Voyager's former Emergency Medical Hologram. One day he might pick a name, but for now we just all call him Doctor." He turned to the Doctor. "Doctor, this is Kathryn Janeway…but she doesn't quite remember the past the same as we do."

The hologram stopped his visual assessment long enough to regard the former commander. "An alternate universe version of the captain?"

Chakotay shook his head. "No. I mean, she doesn't remember the past at all."

"At all?"

"I remember the past three years," Kathryn argued, "more or less anyway."

"We're hoping you can figure out why," Chakotay admitted.

The Doctor looked between the two of them and glanced back over his shoulder to see that Tom and Gretchen were hanging on every word of the conversation as well. "And I assume I'm making this as a house call because you don't want to bring her into Starfleet medical for some reason?"

"We'd like to keep her reappearance within the family for now, Doctor," Gretchen explained.

"I see," he replied slowly, bringing his gaze back to his former captain. "Very well. Where would you like this examination to take place?"

Kathryn glanced at Chakotay. She didn't like the idea of being alone with the Doctor, but she also didn't know if she really wanted Chakotay to witness this. He seemed to understand without her saying a word.

"Why don't you use the bedroom? If you need anything you can call for me and I'll be there in two seconds."

The Doctor had picked up on her hesitancy as well. "Thank you, Chakotay, but I'm sure I'll be safe enough with the captain. She's only found it necessary to partially decompile my program on one occasion."

Kathryn frowned at both of them before spinning on her heel and heading towards the back of the house. Chakotay clapped the Doctor on the shoulder, encouraging him to follow.

Crossing the threshold of the bedroom, the Doctor felt as though he was seeing a caged tiger. Kathryn had moved as far into the room as she could, pacing the length of the bed. She glanced once at him but otherwise showed no indication of letting him any closer. Moving smoothly, he laid out his medical case on the bed, allowing her to easily watch everything he was doing.

"I'd be surprised to learn that this was your idea," he commented, attempting to break the ice.

She gave a little snort but otherwise remained quiet.

He pulled out the medical tricorder and detached the scanning wand. "We're going to have to get a bit closer to each other in order to do this."

Stopping near the corner of the room, Kathryn glared at him. "I don't like doctors."

"I'm shocked."

When he didn't make any move to approach her, she glared at him for another second and then came to a decision. With a jerk she pulled her jacket off and closed the distance between them. "Let's just get this over with."

"Very well." He held up the wand for a moment and gained her nod before starting. "Are you in any pain?"

"No."

He frowned at the readings he was already getting from the first scan of her head. "Would you tell me if you were?"

She glared silently at him.

"I thought as much." He scanned along her jaw. "Do you know what happened here?"

"Plasma burn."

"And fractures along the mandible and zygomatic arch," he paused. "Your cheek and jaw bones were broken."

"A control panel on a shuttle exploded in my face."

"That must've been painful."

"It beat the alternative." She looked away from the sympathy she saw in his face. "I don't remember most of it. Trevor was able to heal the worst of it."

"And Trevor is?"

"Never mind," she grunted.

He continued scanning her, examining the wound that spanned half of her neck. "You have quite a bit of scar tissue along your neck. It'll take more equipment than I have with me to heal it properly." He prodded the area with his finger tips. "Do you have any problems swallowing?"

"No."

"This gash was quite deep," he commented, watching her closely. "I'm surprised you survived it."

_She'd been forced down onto her knees. A hand wrapped painfully in her hair, yanking her head back. A huge flood of bright light focused on her from overhead. A glint of metal flashed in her line of vision, and then she felt the burning slash across her throat. The slow sound of applause reached her ears. _

"Captain?"

Kathryn sucked in a quick breath, the Doctor's voice startling her out of the memory.

"Are you all right?"

She took a few steps away from him, bringing a shaking hand up to her mouth. She'd never remembered _that_ before. How many times had she stared at a reflection of herself, her fingers tracing wonderingly over the line that spanned her neck? The hologram was watching her carefully, and she dropped her hand back to her side. Her heart was beating so fast she felt like she'd been running. She'd examine that memory more closely when she was alone. "If we're going to get through this examination, you have got to stop asking me questions."

He nodded acceptance but knew it would be difficult. In just the first few minutes of scanning her, he already had several mysteries to consider. "I'll restrain myself…until after."

Her jaw clenched at that but on some level that she really did not want to acknowledge, she understood. Forcing herself, she closed the distance between them again. "Fine."

Thirty minutes later, Kathryn stormed out of the bedroom and headed straight for the front door. Chakotay was immediately on his feet ready to follow her.

"Let her go," the Doctor said, emerging from the bedroom. "She just needs a few minutes alone."

"What did you find out?" Tom asked, joining them.

"I'll wait for her before discussing that with you, but you two," he shook his head in disgust, "how _dare_ you keep this from me? Where the hell has she been? What has she been doing?"

"She didn't tell you?" Chakotay asked.

"No! But you should have," the Doctor fumed. "I was not prepared for this. I thought I was coming over here for a simple house call, and you throw me in there cold turkey with her. Do you have any idea the trauma she has been through?"

"No," Chakotay admitted quietly. "We don't."

The quiet admission took some of the wind out of the hologram's argument. "Well…you still could have told me she was alive."

"I'm sorry, Doctor," Chakotay apologized, "but we couldn't risk anyone at Starfleet finding out about her."

"Why not?" he demanded to know.

After a brief hesitation, Chakotay answered, "Because we think they're the ones who did this to her."

* * *

><p>Kathryn stood at the edge of Chakotay's property, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. It didn't have anything to do with the weather, but she couldn't stop trembling. She actually thought the current outdoor conditions fit her mood perfectly. It was almost dark, storm clouds were rolling in, and the air was heavy with the anticipation of rain. If that wasn't a metaphor for her own life, she didn't know what was.<p>

Hearing footsteps approach her from the direction of the house, she quickly rubbed a hand over her face, trying to pull herself together. She should've known Chakotay wouldn't be the type to let her stand out here and stew on her own. Determined to not let him be the one to break the silence, she turned and was surprised to find it wasn't Chakotay that had followed her out.

Gretchen smiled softly and offered her a coffee mug. "Men can be so trying sometimes, can't they?"

The unexpected comment actually got a chuckle out of Kathryn as she accepted the coffee. The warmth from the mug seeped into her fingers and she inhaled the strong aroma, feeling herself relax by the smallest of degrees.

Gretchen moved closer to her side, not looking at Kathryn, but choosing instead to look out the direction her daughter had been gazing. "You know, your sister is going to kill me."

Kathryn blinked and found herself asking, "Why's that?"

"Oh, because I haven't told her that you're back." She held up a hand to ward off Kathryn's immediate protests. "And I'm not going to. Not until you give the okay for that. But when she does find out," Gretchen let out a low whistle, "there will be hell to pay."

Kathryn stared at the older woman, realizing that if it weren't for her boots, the two of them would be the same height. "She'll be that upset?"

"Furious, my dear," Gretchen chuckled ruefully. She caught Kathryn's eye. "Wouldn't you be?"

The little girl Kathryn always saw in her dreams came to mind, but she couldn't reconcile the child with the adult she knew her sister must actually be. Trevor, on the other hand, she could easily imagine how upset she'd be if something happened to him and someone tried to withhold the information from her.

Gretchen was watching her and saw the slight smirk appear. "What is it?"

Kathryn could see curiosity in the older woman's eyes. They were crystal blue, faded a bit with time, but still so expressive. It almost took Kathryn's breath away. "I have your eyes," she blurted.

Gretchen chuckled a little and nodded. "Luckily, you got your father's temper though. He was always more apt to simmer and boil a bit whereas I'm quick to bite. He never held onto his anger though." She laughed again. "He would always say I got the first and last word in any argument."

Kathryn smiled thoughtfully at that. Trevor had always been quick to snap at her when he was angry, his blue eyes hard as diamonds but melting quickly against her slow burning gaze. Arguments between them usually started with him, but Kathryn always had the last word.

"What about…Phoebe?" Kathryn asked, forcing herself to ask about the sibling she didn't know.

"Your sister…" Gretchen mused for a moment, thinking about both of her children. "The two of you couldn't have been more different if you tried. The only thing you had in common was your stubborn streak, and boy did that make for some spectacular clashes during your teenage years." She laughed softly. "Phoebe could not have cared less about space and Starfleet and astrophysics. That was all you. It worked out well, mind you. She trailed after me to museums and art showings while you chased after your father." Gretchen folded her arms across her chest; the smile fading from her face. "When we…lost your father though…" she had to pause. "Well, it was Phoebe that brought you back to me." She gave Kathryn a watery smile. "I guess now I get to return the favor."

Kathryn felt that there was a lot more to that story, but it was obvious the older woman had a hard time talking about it so she just nodded. "I hope you get the chance."

Gretchen patted her arm affectionately. "You found your way back from the other side of the universe, Kathryn. I'm sure we can find your way back from this too." She sniffed once and blinked a couple times, ensuring the tears that had gathered wouldn't fall. "Now, what do you say we go back inside? If I know that doctor of yours at all, he's simply bursting by now to tell us what he knows."

They turned back towards the house, and Kathryn felt her mother's hand still holding onto her arm. She didn't mind. "So, there was only ever just myself and Phoebe?"

Gretchen stopped and looked a little bit startled by the question. "Well, yes, just the two of you were more than enough for your father and me. Why do you ask?"

"Just checking," Kathryn tried to shrug it off as unimportant. "My memory isn't what it used to be."

The older woman frowned but let it drop as they walked the rest of the way to the house in silence.

* * *

><p>The dining area seemed to have become the de facto conference room. Tom and Gretchen were seated at the table while Chakotay sat at the bar. Kathryn stood on the other side of the bar, distancing herself from the others as much as possible while still remaining in the room. The Doctor stood between them all, looking both anxious and uncomfortable.<p>

He looked to Kathryn. "Do you want me to discuss the results with everyone present?"

She swallowed hard, not looking at any of them but giving the Doctor a quick nod of her head.

"Very well," he cleared his throat unnecessarily, "the results of my examination of the captain could easily fill several PADDs worth of data, but I'll try to be brief." He paused, almost expecting a smart remark, but the situation seemed too grim for even Tom Paris. "She presents with clear evidence of numerous bone fractures, most of which appear to have healed been properly. It's clear to see that several surgeries have taken place, but without a more inclusive scan, I cannot begin to hypothesize why these operations were necessary, so please don't ask."

They all absorbed his news silently, but it was clear they were waiting on more. He glanced again at his former captain, but she was steadfastly refusing to meet his eye. "The scan I took of her brain revealed…an implant." Janeway's eyes snapped towards him with such an intensity he almost wished she'd go back to looking away from him. "With only a tricorder I can't be one hundred percent certain, but I do believe this…device is what's causing your memory loss. More to the point, as your brain does not appear to be damaged, I believe the implant is blocking access to your memory centers."

"Can you take it out?" Tom asked.

"I'm afraid it's not that simple. It's an intricate piece of technology that's acting as a sort of firewall within her brain, allowing new information in, but only allowing access to specific designated older information."

"I don't understand," Kathryn said, circling out from behind the bar. "What does its role have to do with you removing it from me?"

"It's damaged."

"Damaged?" Chakotay repeated.

The Doctor hurried to try and explain. "With only the limited scans the tricorder is capable of conducting, I can't be completely certain of anything, but it appears as though the device's electronic signature is degrading."

Tom frowned. "Like it's shorting out?"

"Exactly." He spoke directly to Kathryn. "Have you noticed any differences in your memory lately?"

"I've remembered a few things recently," she admitted.

"You've also been having dreams," Chakotay suggested quietly.

"I would suspect this environment has given your brain stimulus that it recognizes on some level," the Doctor speculated. "_We_ are familiar to you and your brain is trying to make sense of that input."

"And the damaged implant isn't capable of processing everything," Kathryn supplied.

"I'd need to run a complete diagnostic of it to be sure, but yes, that's the idea." The Doctor nodded. "Can you think of when you first noticed a change in your memory?"

She glanced at Chakotay. "Six months ago when he and B'Elanna showed up. That's when things started to fall apart."

Chakotay got to his feet. "But you said you've had dreams even before then. Of your sister. Of…me."

"That's true." Kathryn began pacing around the table. "But that…wasn't the first change."

She made two circuits of the table without saying another word before Gretchen pushed her chair out in front of her path, making her stop. "What is it, Kathryn?"

"When I woke up…in that place…anytime I tried to remember something…there was pain. Like electricity coursing through me, but after we escaped…there was nothing." She looked up. "There wasn't any pain in trying to remember, but it also didn't feel like there was anything there to remember. I just always assumed it had been something with their control over me."

The EMH was frowning. "I don't think it had anything to do with their range or proximity to you. This presents as more of a case where it's hardwired into you." He paced a few steps. "Were you injured during your escape?"

She shrugged and nodded. "Yes, that's when the panel on the shuttle exploded in my face. If Trevor hadn't been the one piloting, we'd have never made it out of there because I was knocked completely unconscious."

Kathryn and the Doctor both missed the exchange of questioning looks between Tom, Chakotay, and Gretchen.

"A significant blow to the head," the Doctor mused. "That might have been enough to destabilize the implant."

Giving his head a little shake, Tom asked, "Doc, what happens if this thing does just eventually short out? Would she get everything back or…"

"I don't know," he admitted, hesitating. "It could become completely impassable or completely inert. I just don't know…there could be other possibilities as well."

Chakotay didn't like the sound of that. "What other possibilities?"

The EMH shook his head. "I need to run more tests…with different equipment." He hesitated again. "I'd also like to consult with Seven of Nine."

"Seven?" Tom asked, surprised.

"The blonde?" Janeway clarified. "What do you need her for?"

"She's very good with…technology," he hedged. "She may know something about it that I…don't."

Chakotay didn't like the sound of that. "Doctor, what _other_ possibilities?"

He made eye contact with all of them before settling on Janeway. "There's one more thing you should know about the implant. The technology…it's Borg."

* * *

><p>.<p> 


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimers in ch 1 and notes throughout (the delay today was not my fault ;) )

* * *

><p>After much reassurance that Kathryn would still be there the next day, Gretchen finally consented to let Tom take her home. The Doctor also left with the promise to return the next day with better equipment and possibly Seven of Nine. Kathryn had not been thrilled with the idea of even more people knowing she was there, but having decided on a course of action, she was now committed. They would do whatever needed to be done to find out about her past.<p>

She heard the back door open and was impressed that Chakotay had waited as long as he had before joining her outside. She looked down at her hands where they rested on the patio railing, rubbing her fingers over the back of the other. "I keep expecting to see implants sprouting out of my skin or something."

He came to stand next to her. "The implants I didn't mind so much," he admitted. "It was always the idea of tubules that I couldn't abide."

She grimaced, that was an idea she hadn't needed in her head. "If you don't want someone that's part Borg sleeping under your roof, I understand. I can find somewhere–"

He frowned at her, cutting her off. "You didn't try and assimilate me last time you had Borg components; I'll take my chances this time too."

"I've had…Borg components _before_?"

Chakotay winced. He hadn't thought that last comment all the way through. "You were…assimilated once."

Both of Kathryn's eyebrows went up and she took a minute to absorb that before shaking her head. "That's one memory I don't necessarily need to get back."

He couldn't help thinking about it. He hadn't been in the transporter room when she'd been beamed back aboard Voyager, but he had seen her in sickbay before the Doctor had had a chance to do anything more than sedate her. The memory of seeing her and B'Elanna lying side by side on biobeds almost unrecognizable as Borg had been fodder for many nightmares over the years.

They both remained quiet as they watched the last rays of the sun fade from the sky. Chakotay had always been comfortable in Kathryn's presence even if they were both doing nothing but reading, but now it just seemed like the air between them grew thicker with every passing minute. There was so much between them that he knew and she didn't that it made the silences heavy with expectation. After another few minutes, he gave up. "I'm going to go back inside. If you need anything..."

His hand had just grasped the handle for the door when her voice broke the silence.

"Tell me about us."

Chakotay froze. With calmness he didn't really feel he asked, "What do you want to know?"

She gave him a sidelong look, measuring his reaction. "Did you love me?"

His hand dropped to his side and he held her gaze. "Yes."

Kathryn felt emotion swell in her chest and she actually had to take a breath and look away from him before she spoke again. ""To have searched for me all of this time…I thought maybe you did." She paused. " Did I know?"

"You knew long before I told you."

She frowned at his answer. "Why did you wait to tell me?"

He gave a weary sigh. "It was complicated," turning to face her he added, "and because you didn't want me to tell you."

"Because I was the captain."

It was a statement and not a question, but he felt compelled to acknowledge her. He nodded. "For the most part."

Kathryn turned her back to the darkening sky and leaned against the rail facing him. Her eyes found his. "You kissed me at the banquet."

He blinked. "You remember?"

She shook her head. "No…I remember…thinking about it, but I don't remember it actually taking place." She studied his face and was surprised to see him smile when she asked, "How did it happen?"

"Upon your arrival at the banquet, you were supposed to be formally introduced and then escorted into the hall. It wasn't something you'd wanted; you'd argued for the entire crew to be introduced," he chuckled, "but eventually it got whittled down to just the senior staff making formal entrances. An hour into the thing and everyone had arrived, but you. I was pacing a hole into the carpet in the foyer waiting for you. I hadn't seen you in two days because of the debriefings, but I knew that even on our night of celebration you were running late because of more administrative details." He shook his head wistfully. "I remember thinking that I was just going to have to commandeer a shuttle and go find you and drag you to the banquet, but then there you were."

Kathryn's breath caught in her throat as she watched him remember.

"You came around the corner and you had on this deep blue shimmery dress that clung to you in all the right places. I barely managed to raise my gaze away from your body and up to your face in time." He laughed. "I was glad I did. You were pissed off and on a warpath. You barely even noticed me standing there waiting you were so mad, and I knew I couldn't just let you go in there and tear into whoever it was that had set you off. There were, after all, civilians present." He laughed again remembering and shook his head. "So I grabbed your arm as you stalked past me and dragged you into the coat check room. If looks could kill I would've been dead on the spot. You were furious, and all I could think about was how damn beautiful you were with the color raised in your cheeks and that dangerous glint in your eye."

"I figured you couldn't possibly get any angrier," Chakotay shrugged at the Kathryn standing in front of him, "so…I kissed you."

Kathryn was aware her mouth had fallen open, but she couldn't seem to close it.

"I wrapped one arm around your waist and pulled you against me. You were so stunned you didn't even respond."

When he stayed quiet for a moment, she realized he was finished. "And that was our first kiss?" she asked incredulously.

He nodded still grinning. "I never did find out what had made you so mad."

"Well…" she started and then tried again, "Well, then what happened?"

"I pulled back, about to let go of you, but you dropped your purse to the floor and your hands slid up my chest. You held my face between your hands and made it clear I wasn't going anywhere." Simply thinking about the look he saw on her face in that moment had his blood stirring. Her eyes that had been so furious moments before had turned passionate, promising him that the dreams of them finally coming together were not his alone.

"So, our second kiss was…better?" Kathryn clarified, wishing he'd go into greater detail. The way his eyes had darkened as he'd talked about her made her pulse race.

His eyes found hers, and it was almost as if he was seeing her standing there in the closet. Her hair mussed from his hands, her lipstick smudged, and her face flushed with excitement. He only wished he could feel her heartbeat thundering in her chest, pressed up against his. "Our second kiss made us almost miss the banquet entirely," he assured her, his throat tight against the words.

She tried to slow her breathing. It had quickened of its own accord when his gaze had lingered on her before he spoke. She was glad it was getting dark because she knew her pale skin was betraying her. There was a lust and hunger in his eyes that made her face heat up as her blood rushed through her veins. "I wish I could remember," she finally managed.

Chakotay heard the same strain in her voice that he'd felt in his own. "You will."

The whisper of a smile crossed her face and she nodded. "Good night, Chakotay."

"Sleep well, Kathryn."

He went inside, heading for his room and a cold shower. It was going to be damned difficult to stay away from her room tonight.

* * *

><p>"Damn it!" Trevor slammed his fist against the console of his shuttle as he saw a second shuttle arrive and land at the home he was watching. What was she doing in there? Telling the whole damn fleet that she'd returned? He switched off the viewer and slumped back into the pilot's chair. Running a tired hand over his face, he considered his options.<p>

He didn't honestly think she was in trouble. What he knew about Kathryn's former crew didn't lead him to believe that they'd hurt her. But that didn't mean that he had to tell her that. What he really wanted to do was fly a low glide over the house, pull Kathryn out of there by transporter, and get the hell out of the system. However, the likelihood of him surviving a stunt like that was slim to none. Kathryn had only replied to one of his messages, but at the time she'd made it clear she had chosen to stay. Him pulling her out of there, especially without warning, was quite frankly a suicide mission.

But if she wasn't coming out of the house that really only left one option for him.

* * *

><p>"You brought a medical shuttle?" B'Elanna asked in exasperation. "You didn't think that would be a little conspicuous?"<p>

"It was efficient," Seven replied archly. "It has all the equipment the Doctor needs without the captain needing to physically be present at Starfleet Medical."

"It's a _shuttle_, Seven! I'm sure Starfleet Medical is going to notice it's gone."

"Nonsense," the Doctor joined the argument. "I simply made up an excuse that I was taking the shuttle to a local designer to see about sprucing up its capabilities." He smiled disingenuously. "Which, by the way, I'm going to need either you or Tom to draw up a report on future engineering possibilities for a shuttle of that design."

Standing in the kitchen, Kathryn winced at the escalating argument taking place in the living room. Chakotay noticed and offered her a refill for her coffee cup. "Don't worry. They actually do all like each other. B'Elanna and Seven have only come to blows once, and that time it really wasn't Seven's fault." Kathryn's eyebrows raised in question. He shrugged. "One of Seven's Borg components went off line and she thought she was a male Klingon initiating a mating ritual with B'Elanna."

Kathryn snorted some of her coffee at his explanation and had to grab for the nearest towel. After dabbing at her watering eyes, she managed to squeak out, "Well, Seven certainly took my appearance better than the others."

Chakotay hadn't been in the room when the Doctor and Seven had arrived. "What did she say?"

"My reappearance was unsurprising albeit ill-timed," she repeated, shaking her head. "Whatever that means."

"In Seven speak that's simply her way of saying that she never gave up hope of finding you, but you shouldn't have taken as long as you did to reappear."

"Oh."

He smiled. "She's quite fond of you. You were like a mother figure to her." He ignored her disbelieving look and asked, "Did she say anything about the data the Doctor took yesterday?"

"Not really." Kathryn shook her head. "But she did assure me that she would find a solution to this problem."

"Can't go wrong with a vote of Borg confidence," he commented just before the front doorbell rang. "I'll get it. It's probably your mother."

She watched him leave the kitchen and wished she could do something as simple as answering the door, but she couldn't. Not yet anyway. Already she was uncomfortable with the amount of people, and the number seemed to grow every day, that knew she was here, but thankfully they all seemed to truly want to help her. It was such a foreign feeling after having lived on the run for the past two and a half years. Trusting no one except for Trevor. Kathryn shuddered to think where she'd be right now if it hadn't been for him. Dead most likely…or worse.

"Kathryn!" Chakotay's voice called loudly from near the front door. "There's someone here to see you."

She moved quickly, noticing that the arguing in the living room had ceased at his bellow. His tone had not been one of welcome and apparently she wasn't the only one that had noticed. Rounding the corner, she stopped in her tracks at the sight of her brother standing framed in the doorway. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Chakotay was holding the door open but not welcoming Trevor inside. The younger man smirked at him but spoke to Kathryn. "I'm here to ask you the same question."

B'Elanna rounded the corner and spotted him. "You!"

Trevor looked at the Klingon woman he'd first met in his bar and then saw the bald man and a statuesque blonde woman standing behind him. "Shit, Kathryn, I thought you were coming here to protect yourself not tell everyone in the damn fleet you were alive."

Kathryn's nostrils flared. "Let him in, Chakotay."

Chakotay glanced unhappily at her but moved aside to let Trevor enter.

"Don't get excited, Trevor. I just don't want to kill you on the patio," Kathryn snapped coldly, causing him to lose the smug grin he'd been giving Chakotay. "Why did you come here?"

"You never replied to my last message."

"I told you I was staying for a few days until I figured some stuff out."

"No, you didn't," he argued. "All I've gotten from you is one message saying that circumstances were different than what you'd expected. I replied telling you I wanted to see you, and I heard nothing back, so of course I came."

"I sent you a second message," she insisted.

Trevor crossed his arms over his chest. "No, you didn't. If you had, I wouldn't be here right now."

"You shouldn't have come," Kathryn growled, infuriated with him and only belatedly remembering Gretchen's untimely entrance. She _hadn't_ sent him a second message, but that didn't mean she had to concede the point to him.

"Then you should have told me that."

The Doctor cleared his throat. "As fascinating as this is to behold," he interrupted before focusing on Trevor, "_who_ are you exactly?"

Trevor looked to Kathryn to see how she wanted to answer, but her jaw was clenched tight and her glare made it clear she had no intention of helping him out. He stretched a hand out to the bald man. "Trevor. And you are?"

"You're the one who rescued her?" the Doctor asked, shaking the extended hand briefly.

Trevor was surprised she had shared that piece of information. She usually refused to talk about her time at the base at all. He wondered what else she had told them. "Well, Kathryn and I have rescued each other over the years. I'd say we're about even."

Seven draped her hands behind her back, making it clear she had no intention of accepting his offered hand. "How did you meet the captain?"

Trevor let his hand drop back to his side and gave Kathryn another glance. Apparently, she hadn't told them much about him. "I'm her brother."

Seven's eyebrow arched upwards. "Unlikely," she stated bluntly, "and also not an answer to my question."

Taking a step away from the four strangers and moving closer to Kathryn, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his weathered jacket. "Look, I didn't come here to be interrogated. I came here to speak to Kathryn." He looked pointedly at her. "Is there somewhere you and I can talk? Privately."

Her glare didn't lesson, but she did uncross her arms as she stalked past him, heading towards the back of the house. "Fine."

* * *

><p>Kathryn threw the bedroom door open so forcefully it bounced off the wall and was swinging back towards Trevor as he followed her into the room. He caught it easily and closed it shut behind him. "You want to tell me what's going on here?"<p>

She spun on her heel and jabbed her finger in his chest. "You want to explain to me what you thought you were doing showing up here?"

"I told you," he said, taking a single step back from her and rubbing his chest. "I hadn't heard from you again. I was concerned."

"You know damn well I can take care of myself," she argued, resting her hands on her hips. "Even if you hadn't heard from me, you've never come rushing in before after so little time has passed."

"These people are Starfleet, Kathryn." He gestured towards the front of the house. "Forgive me if I'm a little more concerned than usual. We both know what they're capable of doing."

Kathryn rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "It's not like that, Trev–"

"And the way you've been acting lately certainly didn't help my paranoia. For all I knew, they could've had you back under their control or something."

She dropped her hand to her side and frowned at him. "If that was what you suspected, do you really think that ringing the front doorbell was the best way to approach the situation?"

His face flushed slightly and he looked at the floor. "No," he mumbled, "probably not."

Kathryn felt some of her temper fade away. "Why don't you tell me why you're really here?"

He shrugged. "You've been acting different for months now. Ever since those two showed up at the bar. I really was worried about you. Maybe not…physically…" He trailed off and walked further away from her. "I didn't understand why you even came here in the first place. I thought we were doing all right."

"We were…finally," she admitted, sinking onto the foot of the bed. "But once Chakotay showed up…I couldn't let it go, Trev. I _knew_ him. I didn't know how, but I had to find out. And I have. I've found out a lot these past few days."

"Like what?" he asked warily.

She was silent for a moment, staring at her hands. "They might be able to get my memories back…from before."

Trevor stiffened. "How?"

She debated telling him, knowing how he was going to react. "A scan revealed…a device of some sort…in my brain."

"You let them _scan_ you?" He was shocked. "You wouldn't even let me take you to a doctor after we escaped and now after only two days here you submitted to…_tests_?"

"I know," she admitted sheepishly, "but, Trevor, these people…they _know_ me. They have memories of me…and pictures." She hesitated again. "I was in Starfleet, Trevor."

He let his chin drop to his chest. "I know."

"You know?" she asked, getting to her feet. "What do you mean, _you know_?"

He held up a hand defensively. "When you wouldn't give up on the idea of coming here…I started doing some digging. You were kind of famous."

Kathryn actually paled. "What?"

"Yeah, uhm…all those dreams you had about the Delta Quadrant-" He winced when he saw her silently shaking her head. "Those weren't dreams, Kathryn. You were there. You brought your ship across seventy-thousand light years in only seven years."

She took a deep breath, holding her hand to her mouth even as she nodded repeatedly. "That's what they told me…and I remembered." She shook her head. "But to hear you confirm it…"

Trevor looked sharply at her. "You remembered? What did you remember?"

She frowned at his tone. "A few things here and there. Scenes really, nothing complete."

"Like what?"

"I was at a banquet. Tom says it was the Voyager welcome home party."

"Who the hell is _Tom_?"

"He's not here yet this morning. He stayed home–"

"Shit, Kathryn!" Trevor ran his hand through his hair. "How many people know you're here? Did you make an announcement?"

There was a light knock on the door, and even though Trevor scowled at the interruption, Kathryn opened it.

Chakotay's eyes quickly flicked over to the corner where Trevor was standing and then back to Kathryn. "Just wanted to let you know, your mother's here." Kathryn ignored Trevor when he threw his hands up in the air, and Chakotay frowned at him but didn't comment. "She's already commandeered the kitchen and is making breakfast for everyone."

"We'll be right there," Kathryn assured him. "Just give us another minute."

With a last look at Trevor, Chakotay nodded and pulled the door closed again. Balling her hands into fists at her side, Kathryn slowly turned back to face her brother. "I am _trying_ to have patience with you, but you are really getting on my last nerve."

Trevor spluttered, "_I'm_ getting…? Now your _mother_ is involved? What the hell are you doing here, Kathryn?"

"I am trying to reclaim my life!" she snapped and saw him immediately look taken aback. She took in a deep breath and lowered her voice. "Now, you can either be a part of that…or you can leave."

He looked anguished. "You'd choose them over me?"

"I'm not _choosing_ them," she argued, "but I do want to find out who I am. If you can't support me in this, then you need to leave, and I'll…I'll try to contact you when it's over."

"You'll try?" he scoffed.

She threw up her hands. "Yes, Trevor. _Try_. If you leave, I don't know where you're going. Hell, if things go badly here, I might not even know who I am much less remember that I'm _supposed_ to try and call you." He actually paled at that idea, and Kathryn moved until she was in front of him and put her hand on his chest. "So you see, it'd be a lot easier if you would just stay and _help_ me."

He glanced at the door and looked incredibly uncomfortable. "I don't know, Kathryn…"

Pain flashed in her eyes and she dropped her hand, taking a step back. "I see."

He let her move all the way towards the door before kicking himself and managing to speak. "I mean, you know, I wouldn't want to cramp your style or anything."

Her eyes snapped to his, her forehead creased in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

Trevor gestured towards the door. "That guy…Chucko–"

"Chakotay."

"Whatever. You've got a thing for him, don't you?" He enjoyed watching her mouth fall open. "Wouldn't having your little brother hanging around put a damper on the mood?"

She closed her mouth with a snap. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Uh huh," he smirked. "Sleep with him yet?"

She felt the heat rush into her cheeks and she really hated him for it. "_That_ is none of your business." She opened the door, took a step out and then froze, turning back to him. "It is also something you will not mention to anyone else in this house, or you'll wish I had left you in the hands of that Bolian woman that wanted to turn you into a party favor."

Trevor felt his own face heat up, and he sobered quickly, although not completely because of Kathryn's threat. He had no idea how this attempt to get Kathryn's memory back would work, but depending on how his part played out…Kathryn may very well wish she _had_ left him with the Bolian.

* * *

><p>.<p> 


	14. Chapter 14

Notes as needed with disclaimers in ch. 1 (better hurry and post before ffnet shuts down...again!)

* * *

><p>Before Kathryn could make it into the kitchen with Trevor following, she was almost bowled completely over when she was caught around the legs and had to grab for the wall to keep from falling.<p>

"Miral!" Tom called out, appearing quickly and helping Kathryn stay upright.

The little girl giggled and looked up to the two adults towering over her. "Hi Kat-ryn."

Extracting one leg from the girl's grasp, Kathryn was able to reclaim her balance and look down. "Hi." She saw Trevor pinching the bridge of his nose and ignored him, addressing Tom instead. "I thought you were taking her to your parents."

Tom pulled the girl completely off his former captain. "I was until she informed me that she simply couldn't wait to tell Grandpa Owen all about the picture lady." Trevor actually groaned and received a startled and confused look from Tom. "So I brought her here instead…I'm sorry, but who are you?"

Trevor gave him a bland smile. "Apparently, I'm the last one to know."

Tom glanced suspiciously between Kathryn and Trevor, trying to decide which one of the two to press for details when Miral beat him to it. With her hands planted firmly on her hips, she addressed the dark-haired man. "I don't know you."

Trevor looked down at her. "Well, I don't know you either."

Miral's eyes narrowed. "I am Miral, daughter of Tom and B'Elanna."

"I'm Trevor…" he glanced uncertainly at Kathryn, "uhm…brother of Kathryn."

The little girl did not look convinced, but Tom stuck out his hand over her head. "Tom Paris."

Trevor accepted the offered hand but kept a close watch on the kid still standing between them. He didn't fancy getting his shins kicked…or gnawed on.

"Miral, honey, why don't you go let Grandma Gretchen know you're here and maybe she'll whip up some banana pancakes for you?" Tom suggested barely able to get the words out before his daughter was barreling towards the kitchen. He eyed the dark-haired man that appeared to be a few years younger than himself. "So, we never knew Kathryn had a brother."

"To be fair," Trevor replied, "she didn't either."

Tom had always been able to read people fairly well and it may have simply been because he had done it so many times himself, but he could tell when someone was hiding something. He kept his smile in place, but asked, "How did you know?"

"I've been told since I was…young," Trevor hedged, understanding immediately that he'd have to be careful around this Paris character. He wasn't as abrupt as the blonde woman had been, but he was shrewder. "Kathryn and I met under…difficult circumstances, but I told her as soon as I could."

Tom crossed his arms over his chest and let a note of disbelief be heard in his tone. "And she just…took your word for it?"

"No," Kathryn interjected, "I made him show me proof. A tricorder scan showed our genetic makeup as having the same father."

Tom looked sharply at Kathryn. "Does Gretchen know about this?"

She shrugged. "She hasn't met him yet, no. Why?"

Tom looked worriedly towards the kitchen and shifted closer to the two of them. "I know you don't remember your father right now, Kathryn, but by all accounts he was a standup guy. You can't just walk in there and announce Trevor as Edward Janeway's son but with a different mother," he sized up Trevor again, "and clearly occurring some years _after_ either you or Phoebe was born."

Kathryn glanced at her brother. "Oh." She nodded, realization dawning. "As long as no one else has mentioned it to her, we don't have to tell her. We can just say he's someone I've been working with."

Trevor shrugged amicably. "Sounds easy enough."

Tom winced as they moved towards the kitchen. He really wished those words had not been spoken so lightly.

* * *

><p>"Well, that could've gone better," Tom quipped as he scooped up a sticky banana slice from the floor.<p>

Seven raised an eyebrow and shifted plate shards from one hand to the other. "How could it have gone worse?"

Tom straightened up enough to look over the bar towards the living room, where everyone minus B'Elanna and a wailing Miral were gathered. "Gretchen could've died from the shock."

The elder Janeway had been in the middle of transferring a dish of banana pancakes from the stovetop to the bar when Trevor had rounded the corner. A gasp and the sound of shattering cutlery had gotten everyone's attention. Miral had been understandably upset about her breakfast ending up on the floor, but Gretchen's eyes had been focused solely on the man standing next to her daughter. She'd paled noticeably and practically collapsed against the Doctor's chest when he'd rushed to her side. Her eyes never left Trevor as Chakotay and the Doctor had maneuvered her to the couch.

"Gretchen's reaction is understandable. His appearance is strikingly familiar to her late husband's," Seven commented, frowning as she picked up a pancake with two fingers.

"Wait…you _knew_ he looked like Edward Janeway?"

"I studied Kathryn's family genealogy and saw many pictures of her father," she explained. "In his younger years, his resemblance to Trevor is quite similar."

Tom thought about that. "How similar?"

She considered giving him a statistical figure but knew Tom would not appreciate her preciseness. "His height and dominant hand differ from Admiral Janeway. He also has a more slender bone structure."

"How do you-" Tom held up a hand and stopped himself from asking a question that would only get him a curt answer. "But other than those three things, he's similar?"

She straightened and dumped the food and plate shards into the recycler. "Yes. It's also worth noting that he shares statistically more traits with Kathryn than one would expect considering they have different biological mothers."

Scouring the last of the sticky mess off the floor, Tom wondered, "What would account for that?"

"Nothing. It is merely coincidence."

"Hypothetically speaking, Seven," he tried again. "If you had to guess."

"Conjecture?" She looked towards the living room, studying the young man standing on the periphery. "An infusion of Kathryn's genetic material at a critical stage of his development could conceivably result in the similarities."

"That would be odd though…right?" Tom clarified.

"No more so than this conversation," she answered and left him standing there with a small grin on his face.

* * *

><p>"And now I'd like to speak to you privately."<p>

Kathryn only had her jacket pulled halfway back on when the Doctor spoke up. Shrugging it up and onto her remaining shoulder and plucking her hair out from underneath it, she looked questioningly at the hologram. "What more do you want to ask me?"

It was only then she realized he wasn't speaking to her. The Doctor was looking almost challengingly at Trevor, who had stood in the corner of the shuttle with his arms folded across his chest for almost the entire time the Doctor and the former Borg, Seven, had examined Kathryn.

"You want to talk to me?" Trevor clarified. "About what?"

The Doctor ignored his question. "Seven, if you and Kathryn would please excuse us for a few minutes."

Seven raised an eyebrow at the dismissal but gave him a slight nod. "Certainly."

Kathryn however wasn't about to be put off quite so easily. "What's this all about?"

"Nothing to worry about," the Doctor assured her. "I'd just like to ask Trevor a few questions, and until I get to know him better, I want to offer him the sanctity of answering those questions in private."

She continued to glare at him suspiciously. "What kind of questions?"

"I'm sorry, Captain. Doctor/patient – or in this case, possible patient – confidentiality." He walked past her towards the end of the shuttle, hoping she'd follow. "Fear not, Captain. I promise to be gentle with him."

"Trevor?" she asked.

He smirked at her, displaying a nonchalance he didn't feel. "I can handle a hologram, Kathryn. I'll be fine."

"Perhaps you would consider joining me for a cup of coffee?" Seven proposed in an effort to get the older woman moving. She had an idea of what the Doctor was up to and felt that it would be in the captain's best interests.

Kathryn still didn't like it, but with a last glance at her brother she followed Seven out of the shuttle, leaving the two very different men facing off with each other.

The Doctor waited until he was sure the women were out of hearing range. "First let me clarify a point," he started. "I am not your doctor and have no intention of keeping what we are about to speak of confidential."

Trevor snorted his disdain. "And what is it that you think we're about to discuss?"

"You are _not_ Kathryn Janeway's brother."

Trevor kept his expression completely neutral. "What makes you think that?"

"I don't think that – I _know_. With one hundred percent certainty," the hologram stated. He gestured to the shuttle's instrumentation. "This is a medical shuttle. It's designed to act as much as possible as a medical assistant for whatever medical team is using it. It can monitor life signs, assess injuries, recommend triage, and many other functions a trauma team may find useful."

Trevor eyed the blinking panels surrounding him with much more trepidation. "What's your point?"

"Once you insisted on joining us, Seven programmed the shuttle to scan you. The results of that scan were automatically downloaded into my matrix. You are _not_ who you claim to be." The Doctor raised an eyebrow at the reaction he noted in the younger man. "Interesting."

"What's interesting?" Trevor snapped.

"Based on the lack of change in your respiration, pulse, and body language…the result of the scan is not a surprise to you," the Doctor surmised. "You already knew you weren't her sibling."

Trevor felt like the entire world as he knew it was slipping away from him. Now not only did the nosy hologram know his secret, but he also knew that Trevor had already known.

"That was the one thing I couldn't be sure of, but I know now." The Doctor shook his head. "I suppose that tricorder reading you showed her to prove your relationship was falsified as well?"

"How did you–"

"I have extremely good hearing," the Doctor cut him off. "I overheard the two of you talking to Mister Paris earlier this morning."

"You _can't_ tell Kathryn about this," Trevor tried.

"I'm going to." He paused. "Why haven't you?"

Trevor shook his head. "It would destroy her."

The Doctor snorted. "I hardly think so. Kathryn Janeway is a formidable woman. It will infuriate her, and for that reason alone I can almost understand your cowardice in not having told her already."

"I'm no coward," Trevor hissed.

The Doctor angrily closed the distance between himself and the young man. "Then you go and tell her the truth right now…or I will."

Trevor backed away several steps from the odd doctor. He'd never had a hologram approach him so aggressively before, and despite his earlier boast, he actually didn't know how to handle the situation. It wasn't like he could punch the man…if he could get a few minutes alone with that emitter thing he might be able to erase the doctor's knowledge, but that didn't seem likely to happen. Trevor was well and truly screwed.

Walking out of the shuttle, he saw Kathryn watching for his appearance from the kitchen window. He motioned for her to join him outside. Putting some space between himself and the shuttle, he heard the front door open and knew the woman he called his sister would be at his side within moments, asking questions. Demanding answers. She was not going to like what he had to say to her, but he would tell her the truth.

Finally.

And then she would probably kill him.

* * *

><p>B'Elanna took a heavy seat at the bar and gratefully accepted the warm beverage Chakotay pushed into her hand. "Where is everybody?"<p>

"Kathryn went outside to talk to Trevor, Seven went back to the shuttle to help the Doctor, and Tom is using the comm. terminal in my office to call Owen." He took a sip of his tea. "Gretchen found you, I take it?"

B'Elanna nodded wearily. "I finally got Miral calmed down enough to eat some breakfast, even though it was _not_ Grandma J's banana pancakes." She grimaced. "Gretchen tried to apologize for that, but Kahless, it was hardly her fault. Did you have any idea Trevor looked like Edward?"

"None." He shook his head. "Where are Gretchen and Miral now?"

"Since Gretchen is the only person that Miral actually behaves for, I'd guess that it might actually be nap time." She shook her head. "I wish I knew how Gretchen managed it. I've tried to watch and learn but she reads from a book and," she snapped her fingers, "Miral is out like a light. I try reading to her and she gets bored and starts running around the room."

Chakotay chuckled. "Gretchen did raise Kathryn." He put his tea down and went to the table to clean up the two coffee mugs that had been abandoned by Seven and Kathryn. "That means she has experience with handling stubborn children."

"I guess," B'Elanna agreed, tucking her hair back behind her ears. "I just wish that experience could be bottled and sold. I'd buy up the entire stock."

"She could make a fortune," he commented, returning the mugs to the recycler and glancing out the kitchen window as he did so. "Shit!"

B'Elanna jumped to her feet at his curse. "What? What is it?"

But Chakotay was already pushing her out of his way as he ran out of the kitchen. Completely turned around and off balance, B'Elanna found herself facing the window and saw outside what had set him off. With a curse, she barreled after him, calling for Tom as she ran.

At the edge of the yard, just before the grass met the trees, Trevor had Kathryn on the ground, her struggling body pinned beneath his.

* * *

><p>.<p> 


	15. Chapter 15

Notes throughout and disclaimer in ch 1

* * *

><p>Trevor grunted as Kathryn dug the heel of her boot into the back of his leg. They'd never actually physically fought each other before, and he sorely wished they weren't now because even though she was pinned beneath him, she was still managing to hit him. "Kathryn, cut it out! I'm trying to explain–"<p>

He yelled out in pain as she sank her teeth into the flesh of his forearm. He tried yanking his arm out of her reach, but that just weakened the hold he had on her wrist. She'd already managed to punch him twice before he'd been able to grab hold of her fists. Not that that had stopped her in the least. She'd simply resorted to kicking him, which had quickly led to their struggle going to the ground. The fight was considerably easier for her since she was actually trying to hurt him while all he was trying to do was defend himself.

"Get off me!" she growled and managed to slip one of her legs back out from underneath his.

Planting her foot, she was able to shift her hips enough that she dislodged him and his grip on her wrist slipped enough that she got her hand free. Trevor quickly leaned away from her, and she barely missed colliding her knuckles against his face for a third time.

"Not until you listen to me!" he growled back at her, trying to catch her hand again.

"GET OFF OF HER!"

Trevor heard the bellow and looked towards the house to see Chakotay barreling towards them from the front door. "Oh great."

Kathryn wasted no time in taking advantage of Trevor's inattention and threw a handful of dirt in his face. He cursed and clenched his eyes closed, only managing to pry them back open in time to see Kathryn's hand flying back up towards his face. Bright light exploded in his head as something significantly harder than her fist struck him in the temple. For the briefest of moments, he lost complete control of his muscles and felt himself slip to the side. Like a snake, Kathryn wriggled her way out from underneath him, jumping back up to her feet, and even before her boot connected with his chest he knew he'd lost.

Chakotay had run as fast as he could, fully intent on tackling Trevor off of Kathryn, but he hadn't moved as fast as she had. She was on her feet and delivering a swift kick to the now-bleeding man lying on the ground. Her first kick hit him right in the sternum, crumpling him over, but she wasn't done, aiming another for his midsection as he lay curled on the ground. For a second, Chakotay was stunned, but then he found himself absurdly having to protect Trevor from Kathryn.

She was yelling at Trevor as she kicked him, but Chakotay grabbed her around the waist and spun her away a few steps, putting distance between her and the man on the ground. "Stop, Kathryn! He's down."

"I don't care!" she yelled as soon as she'd regained her balance. She started to charge forward again, only to be jerked to a halt when someone grabbed her by the arm. She spun around and found herself looking up at the blonde woman. "Let go of me!"

"No," Seven replied calmly.

Kathryn tried to yank her arm free but the woman's grip was tighter than steel, and it surprised her enough that her fury at Trevor actually ebbed for a moment. Then she saw the Doctor moving towards Trevor, carrying a medkit. "Don't touch him!"

The Doctor stopped, surprised at the malice in her tone. "He's injured. I need to help him, Captain."

"Let him suffer," she growled. "It's no worse than he did to me."

Trevor coughed and spit blood out on the ground. "No, Kathryn…I never…hurt you."

Chakotay turned slightly so he could see the man on the ground but still keep an eye on Kathryn as well. "All right, what's going on?"

"He's one of them!" Kathryn growled. "He's one of the people who did this to me!"

"No," Trevor grunted. "You've got it…wrong."

Chakotay watched as Trevor managed to push himself up to one knee. Blood flowed freely down one side of his face and Chakotay saw a bloody stone on the ground where he'd been lying. Kathryn had fought dirty. "What has she got wrong?"

"I never…hurt her." He spit again and grimaced. "I didn't even know she was being hurt. I thought…I thought she was just being…trained."

"Trained for _what_?" B'Elanna demanded to know.

"To be…an agent," Trevor admitted.

Kathryn slammed the heel of her boot down on Seven's foot, catching the woman off guard and pulling her arm from the loosened grip. She lunged again towards Trevor, only to be stopped by Chakotay's arm wrapping around her midsection. She yelled in frustration. "Why are you protecting him? He's one of _them_!"

Trevor was shaking his head and actually held out a hand to her. "No. I swear…I had no idea–"

"I _trusted_ you!"

He actually flinched at her hiss. "I…I know. I'm sorry…I never meant–"

"No," Kathryn sneered, her voice cold and low. "You don't get to say you're _sorry_."

Chakotay felt the change in Kathryn's muscles as she relaxed in his grip. He knew by the tone of her voice she had switched gears, and he loosened his hold on her. She was no longer going to be physical but that didn't necessarily make her any less lethal. He looked over her shoulder at Trevor. "You're Section 31?"

The younger man looked warily at all of them glaring at him but nodded shakily. "I was supposed to be…but I'm not anymore," he clarified quickly. He dared to look at Kathryn. "I haven't been…not since the day I got you out of there."

"But you _were_ an agent?" Tom asked, keeping a light grip on B'Elanna as well so she wouldn't finish what Kathryn had started.

"No." Trevor shook his head, grimacing. He looked up at Kathryn again. "S-she was supposed to be the agent." His gaze dropped down to the ground, unable to hold Kathryn's. "I was supposed to be her handler."

"Someone I would inherently _trust_," Kathryn snarled. "Like a _brother_."

Still looking at the ground, Trevor nodded. "Yes…that was the idea."

Chakotay could feel that Kathryn was trembling she was so furious, and he thought he was finally beginning to understand. The thing he'd known to be true ever since he laid eyes on the man but had had no way of proving. "You aren't her brother at all, are you?"

Trevor's eyes flicked up for a moment but then went back to his unseeing study of the ground. He shook his head.

"Then who are you, young man?"

Having moved a bit slower than the rest of them, no one had even noticed when Gretchen had joined the group. She moved amongst them until she was standing more or less in front of Kathryn. Between Trevor and her daughter. It pained her to look upon him to see how closely he resembled her late husband, and it had caused her incredible heartache when Kathryn had claimed him to be her brother. But as she had read to Miral, she had begun to accept it. Stranger things had happened in the universe, and she had been willing to start working the young man into the fold. It was clear to her just by the way he carried himself that he was in need of a family. But if he had been responsible in any way for hurting her daughter…

Trevor slowly got to his feet, swaying slightly. He glanced at the woman he thought of as his sister and saw only ice in the glare she directed at him. He knew Kathryn well, and he knew that he was as good as dead to her now. She'd never forgive him. The only person he'd ever cared about in his entire life now probably wouldn't even spit on him if he was on fire.

Even as he tried to put his thoughts into some semblance of order so he could try and answer Gretchen's question concerning his identity, Kathryn became tired of waiting.

"He's a science experiment," she bit out. "A fucking hybrid clone of _my_ DNA…and my _father's_."

Her guttural explanation of his life cut Trevor to the core, and he wished that those long days of being taught detachment had actually worked for him. But they hadn't. It was why he was in this mess to begin with. Gretchen approached him and he stiffened.

"Is this true?" she asked.

He swallowed thickly and licked his lips, tasting the blood that was drying there. He could only nod. "Yes."

"And you knew…all this time you've been with Kathryn, you _knew_? And you never told her?" she asked.

He hesitated, his heart sinking at the deep realization of his motives. "I-I couldn't. She was all I had."

Gretchen slapped him. Her small hand rocketing across the side of his face, snapping his head to one side. Trevor kept his head turned away and watched from the corner of his eye as Kathryn collected her mother, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and guiding her back towards the house. Tom and B'Elanna turned and walked behind them with Seven following suit.

"Doctor," Chakotay broke the silence that had fallen, "get him cleaned up and then bring him inside."

Trevor shook his head even as the hologram approached him. "I'll just…go."

"No. You won't. Or do you really not give a damn about her at all?" Chakotay asked sternly.

Emotion welled up inside Trevor and he hated it. "Kathryn is the only person I have _ever_ given a damn about, but in case you didn't notice, she wants nothing to do with me."

"That's because she isn't thinking clearly right now," Chakotay explained dryly. Closing the distance between himself and Trevor, he searched the younger man's eyes. "I don't know what your story is Trevor, but from what Kathryn remembers you did save her life once…unless that was just an elaborate ruse?"

The big man let the question hang in the air and Trevor shook his head. "No. No, they were going to kill her–"

"Why?" Chakotay snapped, moving even closer to the younger man. "Why go to all the trouble of kidnapping her and torturing her if all they were going to do was kill her?"

Trevor actually stumbled backwards a step trying to maintain a certain distance. "They said she had become a liability–"

"How?" Chakotay recovered the distance between them.

"She couldn't be trained. She wouldn't do what they wanted."

"What did they want her to do?"

Trevor's mouth opened and closed but no sound came out.

Chakotay grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shook him. "What did they want her to do!"

"B-become a killer."

* * *

><p>Chakotay found his current situation untenable. He stood in the center of the living room, facing Tom, B'Elanna and the Doctor, who were all sitting together on the couch. Seven stood near the end of the couch, her hands draped behind her back and her face unreadable. Chakotay noticed though she was keeping her weight shifted to one side and off of the foot Kathryn had stomped on. He made a mental note to have the Doctor examine her when they were through.<p>

Tom and Seven were looking at him expectantly, but B'Elanna was glaring at Trevor, who was sitting off to the side practically in the kitchen, while the Doctor kept a close eye on B'Elanna. He had just finished healing the man and had no intention of letting the engineer inflict new injuries. For his part, Trevor sat sullenly, not looking at anyone.

Although it had taken quite a bit of convincing, Chakotay was relieved that Gretchen had agreed to leave, taking Miral with her back to Indiana. He didn't think that anything they were going to talk about in the next hour was stuff either of them really needed to hear. It was going to be hard enough for _him_ to hear.

The back door opened and closed, and Chakotay braced himself for Kathryn's return. At this point he wasn't entirely sure what her reaction would be to Trevor's continued presence. He watched closely when she entered the room and saw the flash of anger in her eyes when she spotted Trevor but was surprised when she calmly took a seat before saying a word.

"Have I missed anything?" she asked mildly.

"No," Chakotay answered. "We were waiting for you."

"Let's get on with it then." She looked over to the Doctor and Seven. "What do we know?"

"The Doctor was correct; the implant is Borg in nature," Seven stated. "Its design, however, is nothing I have encountered before. Its primary function, the manipulation of your memory center, is not relevant to Borg operations."

"Which begs the question," the Doctor picked up. "Where did it come from?"

Trevor snorted and Chakotay looked at him. "You have something to contribute?"

"You really think Seven of Nine here was the first Borg drone Starfleet ever recovered?" he asked sardonically. His head still ached from Kathryn's rock and the naivety on the faces looking back at him irritated him. "Section 31 has had their own Borg mini-collective since Wolf 359. Trust me; they have the expertise."

Seven looked curious at this news while everyone else in the room shifted uncomfortably at the idea. The Doctor was the first to break the subsequent silence. "Well," he cleared his throat, "that explains _one_ thing."

"But it doesn't get us any closer to restoring Kathryn's memories," Chakotay said, bringing everyone's thoughts back to the subject at hand. "Any thoughts on that?"

Seven inclined her head towards the Doctor. "We believe now that the implant can be successfully removed."

Chakotay noticed Trevor sit up straighter while Kathryn oddly showed almost no reaction at all. "How?"

"We can use Seven's nanoprobes to dismantle the implant–"

Trevor was shaking his head before the Doctor could even finish. "No. That won't work."

"Explain," Seven demanded.

"Back me up on this," he told her. "Every Borg's nanoprobes have a unique encoding sequence, right?"

She was less than thrilled at having to agree with him. "Yes."

"Yeah, well, that device is tamper resistant to everything but the Borg who created it. _Your_ nanoprobes won't be able to dismantle it." He shook his head. "You'll only make things worse."

"Worse how?" Tom asked.

Trevor glanced at Kathryn, who was still not looking at him, before answering, "All covert agents have this implant, and it's designed so that if the agent falls into enemy hands, the technology cannot be retrieved."

Tom frowned. "What does that mean?"

"It means if someone tries to remove it, or I try to remove it on my own…I die," Kathryn supplied, still not looking at the man she had called brother.

The Doctor looked horrified. "It's designed to…_self destruct_?"

"And to take its host out with it," Chakotay concluded grimly. "In this case…Kathryn."

B'Elanna leaned forward, her focus on Trevor. "How is it that you know so much about it?"

He hesitated. "As her assigned handler, I was given…instruction on it."

Chakotay saw Kathryn stiffen. "You knew about the implant? You knew that's why she had no memory of her past, and you never told her?"

"I _suspected_ that's why she had no memory, but I couldn't _tell_ her about the implant," he defended. "If I _had_ told her about it, she would have tried to get rid of it, and the only way to do that–" he cut himself off before he had to finish that thought. "She would have gotten herself killed. I was _trying_ to protect her."

"If you didn't know the implant was affecting her memory, what _did_ you think it was for?" Chakotay asked.

Trevor shifted uncomfortably. "It also functions as a homing beacon so that if an agent goes missing or rogue, their handler or the Section, can track and locate them."

"And then what?" B'Elanna asked.

"Rescue them if possible, or if needed…the self destruct can be triggered remotely," he admitted.

Tom let out a low whistle, but Chakotay couldn't really admit to being surprised. That almost seemed like the least of their transgressions. "If they can track her, why haven't they found you after all this time?"

Trevor studied his hands. "During our escape, I programmed the implant to operate only in its passive state." He looked up at Kathryn again, hoping to catch her eye. "I couldn't remove it, and I couldn't turn it off. It doesn't work that way." Accepting that she wasn't going to acknowledge him, he looked down again. "I did what I could."

"It wasn't enough," Kathryn snapped quietly, pushing to her feet and leaving the room.

Chakotay let her go, knowing that she needed the space for a few minutes. He didn't like Trevor. He didn't condone the man's actions, but if what he was saying was all true, he was responsible for keeping Kathryn alive all this time. And Chakotay knew from personal experience how difficult a job that was. Like it or not, Chakotay was indebted to the man.

"You want to help Kathryn?" he asked, watching as Trevor looked up at him. "Then you're going to tell us everything you know about the facility where she was held."

The younger man looked confused. "I will, but why?"

"Because that's where the Borg is that made the implant," he explained.

Understanding and shock spread across Trevor's face. "You want to _infiltrate_ a Section 31 base?"

Chakotay nodded, looking at everyone assembled in the room. "It's the only way to get Kathryn's memory back."

It was Tom that voiced what they were all thinking. "Oh shit."

* * *

><p>.<p> 


	16. Chapter 16

Notes throughout...let's hope ffn stays up and working...disclaimers ch 1

* * *

><p>Tom stood at the far end of the patio, musing to himself about their current situation. He had always been a betting man, and at the moment, he was trying to wrap his mind around the odds of success for an amnesic woman, a former Borg drone, a hologram, a half-Klingon, two human males, and a clone successfully finding a single reclaimed Borg on a space station that probably didn't even officially exist.<p>

He couldn't even begin to lay odds.

Granted two of the people in the equation were Janeways, which gave them a significant advantage in his mind, but in some ways that much stubborn bullheadedness could also be seen as a factor contributing to the entire mission being a complete blowout. That being considered, Tom was also trying to figure out how best to approach B'Elanna about the possibility of her staying behind. She'd never go for it, and her absence from the mission would not improve their odds of success, but they needed to consider what was best for Miral. Both of her parents being locked up in a secret facility for the rest of their natural lives or being flat out killed was not exactly covered in the book on good parenting.

The back door slammed open, and Tom was not overly surprised to see Trevor emerge from the house, looking momentarily as though he was being chased. He even made it off the patio and into the grass before he slowed down. And then froze. His gaze fixed on the parked shuttles. Tom leaned forward a bit to see what he was looking at.

He should've known. Leaning against one of the shuttles, arms crossed, head tilted back and her eyes closed, stood Kathryn Janeway. She too looked as though she had been in need of a moment alone. Tom glanced at Trevor and knew the man was considering going over and trying to talk to her. While he wasn't quite sure where his feelings stood in regard to Trevor, Tom did know that now would not be an opportune time.

He stepped forward and cleared his throat. "I wouldn't do that right now if I were you." Trevor spun towards him, clearly startled. Tom pointed with his chin at Kathryn. "You might want to give her a bit more time."

"I could give her _years_ and it wouldn't be enough time," Trevor replied darkly.

Tom shrugged and leaned his elbows on the rail that ran along the patio. "It might not take _that_ long."

The younger man snorted. "I thought you said you knew her."

"I do."

"Then you should know; Kathryn knows how to hold onto a grudge."

"Yeah, she does indeed," Tom agreed, "but she also keeps a pretty tenacious hold on people she cares about. Likes to keep them close…even when she's mad at them."

Trevor had his back to the shuttles as he faced Tom and didn't notice Kathryn straighten and look in their direction. Their voices must have carried more than Tom thought.

"You sound like you're speaking from experience," Trevor said, almost making the statement the question that it was.

"Oh, believe me. I _am_." Tom raised his voice slightly now that he knew he had Kathryn's attention as well. "She almost killed me once while we were out in the Delta Quadrant."

"Only once?" Trevor retorted sarcastically.

Tom knew a defense mechanism when he heard it and ignored the barb. "I disappointed her. I went against her orders, caused a planetary incident, and generally made her look incompetent in front of the planet's ruling body. But at the time I thought I was doing the right thing and eventually she respected that." He shrugged. "I still ended up in the brig for thirty days though."

"Thirty days?" Trevor's eyebrow lifted. "But after that, she…forgave you?"

"No." Tom shook his head. "It took longer than that. Months went by before she really began to trust me again. I had to work to get that back."

Trevor nodded thoughtfully, but Tom watched Kathryn turn away and disappear back behind the shuttle.

"You want to know what the worst part of it all was?" Tom asked rhetorically. "The way she managed to seem completely indifferent about the whole thing." He saw understanding in Trevor's eyes and continued. "I knew it was just her Starfleet training to remain detached and unemotional, but for those thirty days…I kept hoping she'd come down there and just really let me have it. But she never did. She really put up a wall, and even after I served the thirty days, it was weeks before I got more than a few words at a time from her."

"Well," Trevor said, rubbing his jaw where she'd hit him, "she had no problem expressing her true feelings to me."

Tom frowned at that, but it was true. This Kathryn didn't have the years of command training holding her back, restraining her emotions. It made him worry even more about the likelihood of success if Kathryn went with them to the Section 31 base, but convincing her to stay behind would be even more difficult than keeping B'Elanna home.

Trevor sighed, bringing Tom's thoughts back to their conversation. The younger man gestured to where Kathryn had been standing. "After what I've done, I guess I'll expect to hear from her in oh say five years or so."

"Maybe." Tom could hear the conversation inside the house pick back up and knew that Kathryn had reentered using the front door. He tapped the rail with his knuckles. "Come on; let's go back inside so we can start planning this suicide mission."

He was only half-joking.

* * *

><p>Kathryn stared at the machine on the counter, watching as a small wisp of steam curled out from the top of the pot and the heavenly aroma of fresh brewed coffee filtered into the air. Tapping her fingers against the cold mug she currently held, her patience was sorely tried as the brew seemed to be taking forever to finish dripping. Her headache was increasing, and she was incredibly tempted to just yank the pot out and let it continue to drip onto the burner, but she gave herself and the infernal machine a silent countdown as she waited for the indicator light to flare into existence.<p>

"They say a watched pot doesn't boil."

"I don't want it to boil," she replied, her eyes never leaving their object of surveillance. "I just want it to stop dripping. Ah!"

The orange light turned blue and Tom watched Kathryn grab the handle of the kettle and immediately pour the steaming liquid into her mug on the counter. She glanced up at him. "Do you want some?"

"No thanks," he answered, amused at the uncomprehending shake of her head at his refusal. "It's good to see some things never change."

She leaned back against the counter, cradling the warm mug between her hands. "I'm continually surprised I still like it."

Tom's head cocked to the side at the quietly offered statement. "Why wouldn't you?"

She looked up at him and debated answering him truthfully. She hadn't meant to say that out loud, but giving a mental shrug she told him. "They used it as a reward."

Tom blinked. "Oh."

"Yeah." She shook her head and stared down into the mug. "I repeated information back to them that they'd wanted me to learn or memorize. I'd assemble an explosive device the way they'd taught me." She shrugged and took a sip. "I cooperated; I was rewarded. A blanket. Clean clothes." She held up the mug. "Cup of coffee."

"They knew your vices," he said grimly.

She nodded. "They knew me _very_ well. Better than I knew myself."

"You still defied them though."

"On the big things," she allowed, "but on the smaller things…I don't know. The longer it went on the more I was slipping. I'm not sure…"

She fell silent as Chakotay came in the kitchen. He studied them both briefly before gesturing towards the living room. "Everyone's back inside if you're ready to get started."

Kathryn nodded, gave Tom a tight almost smile and followed Chakotay out of the kitchen. She took the same seat she had earlier, noticing everyone else had done the same, except Tom, who leaned against the doorframe behind Trevor.

Chakotay stood near the fireplace, still between Kathryn and Trevor. He gestured to the young man. "In order to do this, we need you to tell us everything you know."

Trevor nodded. "About the base?"

"About everything," Chakotay clarified. "Kathryn's intended mission. Your role. The layout. How many forces there are. Everything."

The younger man swallowed and sat back in his chair. "All right," he glanced at Kathryn. "This is what I know. After the war with the Dominion, the Cardassian government was in much the same shape as the planet. They were in ruin. Eventually new players emerged and naturally the Federation and Starfleet wanted to get on good terms with them. There was one Cardassian, in particular however, that was of great interest to Section 31. Godal Mecen. He'd allegedly worked within the Cardassian Intelligence Bureau and the Obsidian Order before that. He made some noise pretty early on that he had information regarding Starfleet's secret involvement with the Vorta and the Jem'Hadar." He shrugged. "Naturally, Starfleet denied any knowledge of it whatsoever, but 31 was feeling just a little bit guilty."

"Wait," B'Elanna interrupted. "Are you saying 31 was _allies_ with the Dominion?"

"No, that's too strong a word, but there were some…collaborations. For instance, where do you think 31 got the cloning technology to make me?" he asked and chuckled darkly at their looks of shock. "Starfleet was already researching cloning, sure, but to make an adult hybrid clone in a shortened time frame? No, for that kind of a jump they definitely had a cheat sheet…some inroads made for them."

"But you're…_human_, right?" Tom clarified.

Trevor nodded. "One hundred percent…Janeway." Kathryn gave him a dark look and he returned it with a smirk. "Their mistake really."

"How so?" Chakotay asked, surprised that Trevor had brought up that particular point again.

"I'll get back to that, but it's not important for what Kathryn's original mission was supposed to be. Godal Mecen was of great interest to 31, but they couldn't get to him. He was all Cardassia had left of a working intelligence system so they were rather protective of him, and he was properly paranoid as well. But as with most things Cardassian, there was another person, Legate Pral Utok, who was willing to stab Mecen in the back. Literally, if we wanted…which was _exactly_ what 31 wanted. But there was a price to pay."

B'Elanna snorted. "There always is."

"Utok was a part of Mecen's inner circle, and Utok was more than happy to get rid of Mecen on behalf of Starfleet if there was, of course, something in it for him."

"What did he want?" Tom asked.

"Utok's request was two-fold. First, he wanted to see the Starfleet records of a battle that took place during a border conflict involving a Federation outpost. It seems his nephew was killed during three days of fighting that took place on some planet and Utok wanted revenge on the member of Starfleet that had killed him." Trevor shrugged and missed the sidelong glance Seven gave Kathryn. "There was no way to tell who had shot whom during the battle. That wasn't exactly the kind of records kept by Starfleet, but they did have record of an away team on the planet whose members all received decorations for their conduct during the mission. Guess whose name was on the list."

"Captain Janeway," Seven stated matter-of-factly, surprising most of the people in the room.

"Exactly. Lieutenant Kathryn Janeway. As soon as Utok saw her name, he automatically proclaimed her as the person he held responsible. Turns out, he remembered Edward Janeway from his early dealings with Cardassians and had never liked the man."

"But Kathryn was in the Delta Quadrant," Chakotay interjected.

"Which leads us to how I come in," Trevor explained. "In order to gain Utok's cooperation, 31 made me. A construct of Janeway DNA that upon being scanned, he couldn't possibly refute. He wanted revenge against a Janeway. He could have it."

"They created you just so Utok could _kill_ you?" B'Elanna asked, disgust evident in her tone.

Trevor nodded. "And they would have if Voyager hadn't come bursting out of a Borg sphere right when it did. Suddenly, Mecen, who Starfleet previously couldn't get within a planetary orbit of was open to meeting with Starfleet officials…provided of course that the official diplomatic party included Kathryn Janeway."

"Mecen wanted to meet the famous captain of Voyager," Tom commented.

"Yep. Section 31 now had the perfect opportunity at their fingertips to get close to Mecen without needing to use a middle man, Utok. They could just put an agent in Kathryn's greeting party." He flashed a grim smile. "Except that having just returned to Earth after seven years in exile, Kathryn wasn't too thrilled about going on a three month diplomatic mission to placate the ego of some random Cardassian politician."

"That must've been what you were so mad about when you arrived at the banquet," Chakotay realized, looking to Kathryn. With no way of remembering if that was true or not, she allowed for the possibility with a shrug of her shoulders.

"But she said no and so they just…took her anyway?" Tom asked.

"That's the gist of it."

"And then what happened?"

Trevor sat back in his chair. "From what I understand, they tried…_reasoning_ with her. Convincing her of the rightness of their position. And if I know 31 at all, they probably told Kathryn she was going to help them whether she wanted to or not. I'm sure we can all imagine how well that went over with her."

When everyone in the room looked at her, Kathryn mouthed, "What?"

Chakotay grinned at her and shook his head. "Okay, so she still refused. What did they do then?"

Trevor looked uncomfortable. "They went back to plan B. In exchange for his assistance, let Utok kill Janeway. Only now they didn't need a counterfeit since they had the real one."

B'Elanna wasn't sure she was understanding what Trevor was telling them. She gestured towards Kathryn. "Well obviously they didn't kill her."

"Actually…they did. Technically," he allowed. Looking directly at Kathryn, he told her, "It's how you got that scar on your neck."

Kathryn fingered the corded line that spanned half of her neck. "I remember…there was…applause."

It was the first time she'd actually acknowledged Trevor since they'd come inside. He nodded. "That would have been Utok. He didn't want to actually get his hands dirty. He just wanted to watch."

"But she's _here_," B'Elanna insisted.

"Utok was happy enough to see her lying on the floor bleeding out. He assumed she was as good as dead. Left unattended, she would have been, but somewhere, somebody thought it might be worth saving her. As soon as Utok was out of the room, they beamed her into medical and got her stabilized. I guess they realized someone with her training and intellect could be a very valuable resource. All they needed to do was wipe out her memory of who she was and she'd be a pliable highly trained agent."

"Or so they thought," Tom remarked.

Trevor nodded.

"Wait, wait, wait." B'Elanna got to her feet, holding her hands up. "This doesn't make any sense. _I _can't set foot on the grounds of the Academy without someone rushing up to me, asking me questions, shoving designs in my face or whatever. But that's nothing compared to her celebrity." She pointed at Kathryn. "She's probably the most easily recognized person in this quadrant, especially with the insane amount of holopics that were broadcast of her everywhere after she disappeared. Even if Section 31 had wiped her memory and made her an agent, people would have still recognized her."

"They weren't keeping Kathryn for her looks. They were keeping her for her training…her instincts," Trevor explained. "If they'd kept her, they would have done enough body modifications on her that she would have been able to walk right up to you and ask for the time and you would have never known it was her."

"All right, so why didn't they 'keep' her?" Chakotay asked, shaking off the disturbing idea that he may never have even recognized her.

"They weren't completely happy with the amount that she defied them throughout her training, but they understood that to ultimately be part of her character. The problem came on the final test. The final…proof that as an agent you'll complete your assigned mission." He shook his head. "Kathryn wouldn't do it."

"What wouldn't I do?" she asked.

His eyes met hers and he told her solemnly. "They wanted you to kill someone."

Kathryn frowned and glanced at Chakotay before looking back to Trevor. "I've killed people before." She lowered her voice. "You _know_ that."

"But not without cause," Trevor argued. "You've only killed people in self defense or in defense of others."

Kathryn shifted and a guarded look came into her eyes that Chakotay recognized. She was uncomfortable about something Trevor had said. It hadn't quite been the truth and Chakotay thought back to how he had ultimately found her. She'd been posing as a mercenary for hire. A job that was not exactly a defense only type of career.

"The point is," Trevor stressed, "31 wanted you to kill someone, a defenseless subdued person on their orders and without giving you any reason. Despite the training, the indoctrination…you refused. That wasn't something they could allow."

"And is this where you come into the story?" the Doctor asked.

"Sort of," Trevor allowed. "They'd finally given me her 31 file a week or so earlier in expectation that she would pass the final phases of her training. Once she did, I needed to be ready to begin a relationship with her as her…brother. Her handler. They felt that she'd be more likely to trust me, that she'd be less likely to resist my…guidance."

"You mean your _control_, don't you?" Kathryn snapped, sitting back in her chair again.

The mood of the room shifted with Kathryn. While her curiosity and questing nature for what had really happened had managed to briefly push aside her disgust, everyone had become engaged with the tale, but once again reminded of the part Trevor had knowingly played she retreated once more, pulling everyone else back as well.

Trevor noticed and sat back himself, giving her a humorless smirk. "Well, I think it's been pretty well documented at this point that no one controls you, Kathryn."

With a small grimace, she turned away from him again. Chakotay rubbed the back of his neck. "Let's just stick to the timeline. What happened next?"

Trevor stared at Kathryn for another long moment before answering Chakotay. "I was informed that I no longer needed to concern myself with her. Her training was considered a failure and after a final debriefing she was going to be…terminated." He rolled his eyes. "Probably by another agent in training who would _successfully_ complete the final test of obedience."

"You mean–?" Tom started and then nodded to himself remembering the test Kathryn had failed. "Oh. Right."

"But as fate would have it, for some reason that escapes me now, I couldn't just standby and let her be killed." Trevor snorted and shook his head. "I felt like I'd gotten to know her. I'd read her file. I'd seen a few holovids of her. Not the training ones," he clarified quickly. "Just… ones of her. Drinking a cup of coffee or studying some PADD they'd given her to memorize. I'd seen her tuck her hair behind her ear. I'd watched her sit and read. She'd pull her legs up in the chair with her and fold her arms around them. Just little things…" he trailed off and flushed slightly when he remembered his audience. Clearing his throat, he continued, "So, when they told me they were going to kill her…I intervened." He shrugged self-consciously. "I had all the information on where she was being housed. I stole a shuttle and using a few tricks 31 had been so kind as to teach me, I beamed her out of there. Long story short. We escaped and have been on the run from that place ever since."

It was quiet for a moment when he finished until Kathryn dryly remarked, "You left out the part about almost killing me in the process." She looked to B'Elanna. "He thought that by rerouting energy through the power couplings on the shuttle he could actually strengthen our shielding." She smirked coldly at Trevor. "But really all you did was cause a feedback surge that exploded a panel in my face."

Trevor's eyes hardened as he held her gaze. She'd obviously made up her mind about him, and he was through trying to convince her. "I had to knock you out somehow, _sis_." He snorted when she glared at him. "I told you I reprogrammed the chip in your head. When do you think I did that? All those hours you spent _not_ _sleeping_ so you could keep an eye on me?"

Realization dawned and she snarled, "You son of a bitch."

"Careful." He wagged a finger at her. "You're only insulting yourself when you call me names."

"How _dare_ you?"

"I've got nothing left to lose," Trevor retorted.

Chakotay stepped forward, putting himself between the two of them before Kathryn decided it would just be easier to phaser her former brother. "That's enough."

Trevor leaned to the side, ignoring Chakotay, his eyes still on Kathryn. He was surprised she'd let their argument go so easily. She never let him get the last word. "What is it?"

Chakotay heard the concern in Trevor's tone and turned to Kathryn in time to see her pinch the bridge of her nose before shaking her head.

"Nothing," she ground out. "Just a headache."

The expression on Trevor's face deepened but a trio of beeps drew everyone's attention to Seven. Barely raising an eyebrow, she activated a comm. device attached to her wrist. "Go ahead."

The voice on the other end was silent to everyone but Seven, and Chakotay held up a hand in question. The former Borg ignored him, concentrating solely on her conversation. "I understand. Continue monitoring and keep me apprised," she ordered to whoever was on the other end.

Clicking the comm. device off, Seven addressed the group. "We should leave. Now."

"Why?" Chakotay demanded.

"This home is under surveillance," she stated flatly. "I've had Icheb monitoring all the current news sources with instructions to alert me to any stories of interest–"

"You told Icheb about Kathryn?" B'Elanna asked, surprised.

Seven raised an eyebrow at her interruption. "No. As it turns out, I did not need to." She faced Chakotay. "One of the entertainment news stations just ran a preview story entitled "Is Kathryn Janeway Back". It will be airing in less than five minutes."

"What!"

"Icheb reports that an unclear picture was shown to entice viewers. It showed all of us standing on Chakotay's front yard."

Kathryn groaned, her hand covering most of her face. Chakotay glanced at her but his mind was still trying to work through what Seven was telling them. "And the image showed Kathryn?"

"By Icheb's description, it was taken of us earlier today, but no," she too glanced at Kathryn who was still sitting, "the captain was not clearly defined in the image."

"She probably will be if they have video of the whole time she was outside," Tom commented.

"They must still have news satellites detailed to my house," Chakotay mused darkly. "I thought they'd given up on me last year after I'd been gone for so long."

Tom was nodding. "I still catch an occasional signal going over our house–"

He was interrupted by another alarm sounding, this time coming from Chakotay's comm. terminal. B'Elanna was on her feet immediately, rushing towards it. "That's the emergency comm. signal routed from our house."

Trevor slipped behind Chakotay, approaching Kathryn. Not only had she essentially backed down from an argument with him, she also hadn't shown any interest in the current conversation. Two things he found incredibly alarming for her. "Kathryn, are you all right?"

Chakotay turned, saw her drop her hand away from her face and was shocked by how pale she had suddenly become. "Kathryn? Doctor!"

The EMH pushed past him, a tricorder already in hand as he knelt beside her chair.

"Harry's on the line. He's been trying to reach us for thirty minutes," Tom reported, coming back into the living room. "He's in orbit and has been put under orders to maintain surveillance of Voyager at the Presidio and report any unusual activity."

"Doc, what's wrong with her?" Trevor asked.

"The news show is beginning," Seven stated, listening once again to her comm. device. "It is a five second video of the confrontation that took place outside. Apparently the satellite was only broadcasting burst transmissions."

"Harry wants to know what's going on and how can he help," B'Elanna announced, rejoining the room.

"The implant in her brain…it's activating."

A cry of pain from Kathryn silenced the room and punctuated the Doctor's words. The hologram looked up fearfully at Chakotay.

"It's 31," Trevor claimed. "They're trying to remote activate the implant."

"How do they know–"

"That doesn't matter! If they can make a connection, they can input the command for the implant to self destruct!"

"The power levels are increasing," the Doctor reported.

"What do we do?" Chakotay asked, noticing that Kathryn had grabbed one of Trevor's hands and was bearing down on it.

Trevor paled. "We have to get it out of her."

"You told us we could not," Seven argued, watching as Kathryn leaned forward, her free hand grabbing the side of her head. "You said it wasn't safe."

"That's when we had a choice! If we leave it in now…we _have_ to get it out," Trevor insisted, looking only at Chakotay. "It's the only way."

"We can perform a medical transport in the shuttle," the Doctor added, speaking quickly, "but based on our earlier conversation I have no way of knowing what the consequences may be."

Chakotay hesitated for a moment. Long enough for Kathryn to look up at him. A sheen of perspiration covered her face, making her pale features appear even starker.

"Just…do it," she commanded before her eyes rolled back and she slumped forward.

* * *

><p>.<p> 


	17. Chapter 17

Notes throughout and disclaimers in ch 1. Thanks so much to everyone for continuing to read!

* * *

><p><em>She had woken up because she was cold; she hated being cold. She shouldn't be cold, but the boots, gloves, and jacket she'd been wearing earlier had mysteriously disappeared. Shivering slightly, Kathryn despised the fact that she was dressed so completely casually. The kind of situation she was now apparently facing was really better handled in uniform, but damn it all, she'd only been running into town long enough to pick up some breakfast and then hurry back home before she was missed. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms in an attempt to warm up either, she wondered just how long she'd been gone at this point. <em>

_When she'd first woken, she'd easily identified the lingering effects of some drug in her system, and her murky memory had eventually recalled the feel of a hypospray at her neck. Kathryn rolled her neck and shoulders and felt a twinge. She'd definitely pulled a muscle in the brief struggle that had taken place. She would have never been so careless in the Delta Quadrant, but walking down the early morning streets of Bloomington, Indiana she'd allowed her mind to wander, her instincts to relax. She hadn't been paying any attention to her surroundings. The two men that had been approaching her from the opposite direction had not drawn her attention at all. They'd appeared as normal an occurrence as anyone else in the small town. _

_Until they'd grabbed her, propelling her backwards into an alleyway, where two more people had been waiting. The struggle had been quick and quiet, and she'd been subdued before she'd even had a chance to utter a sound. Whoever had taken her was definitely professional. _

_And now she was alone and getting colder. The small room, which could also be called a cell, consisted of four metal walls, metal ceiling and floor, and two doors. She'd been lying on the floor when she'd woken and even though she was thankful to still have on her socks, the cool metal of the room continued to leach away her body heat. She didn't even have a clue who had taken her prisoner or why. _

_The only thing she could be fairly sure of at this point was that Chakotay had woken by now and noticed that not only was his tuxedo shirt from the banquet the night before missing but her as well. She sniffed at the collar of the too-big shirt she was wearing. At least his scent was comforting, even if she did wish that she had chosen something else to wear this morning. _

_She'd really wanted the fresh cinnamon buns from the bakery this morning, but she hadn't wanted to wake him. She also hadn't wanted him to wake up while she was gone and think she'd left him in the light of day either. So she'd thrown on his shirt to wear for the quick trip. Surely, he'd realize she was coming back if she'd taken his shirt. At least, she hoped he'd realize._

_There was a slight buzzing sound and a table and two chairs materialized in the room. Kathryn folded her arms across her chest and waited. Within a minute, the door to the right opened, and a human male dressed in an all-black uniform walked in, carrying two PADDs with him. _

"_Who are you and what is the meaning of this?" she demanded immediately, getting to her feet. _

_He glanced at her and a smirk tugged at his mouth as he pulled out one of the chairs and took a seat. "My apologies, Captain," he said in voice that was not at all apologetic. "I know we caught you a bit…unaware."_

"_You drugged me against my will and kidnapped me," she snapped back. "That's a bit more than…unaware." _

"_Yes, well time is of the essence and we had to dismiss some of the usual pleasantries." He paused to scroll through the contents on one of the PADDS. "You know, it's always mystified me as to why they picked you of all people to go chasing after the Maquis. I mean, surely they suspected you of being a sympathizer at the very least."_

_The chill in the room was evenly matched in her eyes when she responded. "I beg your pardon." _

_He looked up, feigning surprise at the fact that she was still standing. "Please, Captain, have a seat. Would you like something to drink? Coffee, perhaps?"_

"_What I would like is an explanation," she insisted, placing her palms on the surface of the table. "Who the hell are you? And what do you want?"_

"_I'm Commander Stone__–__"_

"_You're Starfleet?"_

_Dark amusement flitted briefly across his features. "Yes."_

_Kathryn's eyes narrowed. "I don't believe you." _

_He shrugged as though what she believed was completely inconsequential. Holding up the PADD he'd been perusing, he commented, "I've read your file. It helped me understand how it was possible for you to successfully blend a Maquis crew with a Starfleet crew."_

"_What are you talking about?"_

"_Come now, Captain, surely your personal experiences with Cardassians helped you identify with the Maquis members of your crew." He smirked again at the spark of surprise that lit her eyes. "Oh, when I say I've read your file, I mean that I've read your entire file. Even the highly classified bits." He keyed up a section of content on the PADD and began to read from it. "The Cardassians I interacted with were manipulative, devious, and cruel. They showed no remorse or concern for their immoral acts." He looked up. "Your own words, Captain. From your debrief."_

_Kathryn straightened. Up until now she'd been annoyed and only a little frightened, but now a more serious sense of danger settled in her stomach. There weren't too many people who had the kind of access he apparently had. Her hands settled on her hips and she took advantage of making him look up at her. "You left out the part where I refused to label an entire race based on the actions of only a few."_

"_True," he acknowledged, "but there must have been some part of you that identified with the cause of the Maquis. Some part of you that remembered that cold dark cell and those hours of torture you endured at the hands of the Cardassians."_

_She studied him coldly. "And if there was?"_

_Putting the PADD down, he folded his hands on the table. "If there was, it could only serve to benefit you in the mission we need you to undertake now."_

"_All of this has been about a mission?" she asked incredulously. _

_He sighed. "We did try to talk to you about this in a more comfortable setting."_

_She paced away from him, one hand planted firmly on the small of her back as her mind rushed back over the events of the past twenty-four hours. The two officers that had shown up at the banquet. The diplomatic mission to Cardassia that she had been encouraged to take just before departing for the banquet. She tried to recall the details. Her mind was still a bit sluggish from whatever they'd drugged her with, but the mission had been something about one of the new members of the Cardassian government wanting to meet her. She shook her head, muttering, "This is insane."_

_The commander didn't bother responding to that. He thumbed the other PADD on and pushed it across the table. "This is Godal Mecen, former member of the Obsidian Order, former member of the Cardassian Intelligence Bureau, and now a member of the fledgling Cardassian government."_

_Kathryn grudgingly picked up the PADD and looked at the picture. "Why are you telling me this?"_

"_Mecen has made it clear that he has damaging information on Starfleet and the Federation. He is also vehemently opposed to Cardassia allying itself with us in any way," Stone briefed. "He is an obstacle to the peace process that the Federation sorely does not need right now."_

"_A single voice in the Cardassian government is not going to stop them__–__"_

"_As the only Cardassian Intelligence representative, his voice will be heard and his arguments heeded," Stone insisted._

_Thinking back to the mission briefing she had quickly scrolled through before going to the banquet, she remembered Mecen's picture. "But he wanted to meet with me, didn't he? Apparently he's not too opposed to the Federation."_

"_We believe he was simply using the opportunity to meet someone of your celebrity to further his own position on his homeworld. He has no intentions of peaceful coexistence with the Federation."_

"_Then why did Starfleet want me to meet with him?"_

_Stone pulled the PADD back and thumbed it off. "Mecen is a threat to the continued security of the Federation. He must be eliminated."_

_A cold feeling swept over Kathryn that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. "You were going to use my meeting with him as an opportunity…to kill him?"_

_Stone leaned back in his chair and regarded her silently._

"_And I refused to go on the mission…so you kidnapped me?" He maintained his silence. "Why? What did you hope to gain by bringing me here?"_

"_We want you to reconsider your answer," he replied._

"_So you can kill the man?" she scoffed. "Have you even heard of the Prime Directive?"_

"_He poses a threat to our security__–__"_

"_You don't know that! You're making assumptions based solely on speculation of his beliefs."_

_Stone sighed and shook his head. "You won't reconsider?"_

"_Even if I don't like the Cardassians and believe that your assumptions are correct," she allowed, her voice coming out as a grave hiss, "as Starfleet officers, we do not interfere in the inner workings of governments of other cultures."_

"_I never thought you'd be so naïve." Stone got to his feet and picked up the PADDs. "It's a shame really; I had hoped we could work this out."_

_The door he had entered through opened and two more men dressed in all-black uniforms entered the room. Stone nodded to them and they moved forward to flank Janeway, each grabbing her by an arm. _

"_What is the meaning of this?" she snarled, attempting to jerk herself free from their grasp. _

"_I wish you would have agreed, Captain, but your defiance means nothing. Mecen will still be killed," he said flatly. He thumbed a device which opened the opposite door. "I had hoped we'd have a chance to work together."_

_Stone nodded, and the two guards propelled her through the door into a darkened room with only a glaring light illuminating the middle. Upon reaching the circle of light, a punishing fist connected with her right kidney area, dropping her to her knees. A hand wrapped itself in her hair, painfully yanking her head backwards, and pulling her even further off balance._

"_State your name."_

_When her hair received another vicious pull, she realized the question was directed to her._

"_Kathryn…Janeway," she hurled at the disembodied voice._

_There was a dark laugh. "Proceed."_

_She didn't have to question what the order meant. This time she knew it wasn't meant for her as the blade of a knife glinted briefly in the harsh light above her. The cold metal touched the bared expanse of her throat and then fire erupted as the blade was pulled across her skin. _

Coughing and gasping for breath, Kathryn shot up to a sitting position, her hands clawing at her throat desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood that she knew she would find. Strong hands wrapped around hers, trapping them, keeping her from saving herself.

"It's okay, Kathryn! You're safe! You're okay."

The rich voice was adamant, and her eyes flew open to find its owner only inches from her face. His proximity should have been alarming, but his voice and hands were unexpectedly reassuring.

"Please, Kathryn. Calm down. You're all right. You're safe."

She took in a shuddering breath and stared around at her surroundings. Nothing looked familiar except the man in front of her and she had no idea where he'd come from. "W-where…how?"

He released her hands and gently moved her hair away from her face. "You're on a medical shuttle. On Earth."

She immediately rubbed her freed hand over her throat, barely even hearing his answer. The skin beneath her fingers was dry with no gaping wound or blood flowing down her neck. She swallowed thickly, beginning to believe his assertions that she was fine.

"Kathryn." He wanted her full attention and waited to say more until she looked him in the eye. "Do you know who I am?"

She looked at him, a bit perplexed, but reached an unsteady hand out to his face. "Yes, Chakotay, I know you."

His chin dropped to his chest in obvious relief, and Kathryn felt an amused confusion at the reaction. "I assume there's a reason you thought I might not. A reason that would explain why I'm on a..." she frowned, eying the blinking panels and instruments surrounding them, "...a medical shuttle?"

His shoulders had relaxed slightly but there was still an anxiousness in his eyes when he looked back into her face. "Kathryn, do you know what year it is?"

"Of course, it's twenty three seventy…" she frowned. "It's twenty three seventy…well, we're home, so that makes it…" Her mind seemed to be operating in sludge. She couldn't seem to connect any of her thoughts. "No, that's not right. We're home…but it's been a few years, hasn't it?"

Chakotay nodded at her question hearing the confusion and hesitation in her voice. Footfalls clattered on the ramp of the shuttle as the Doctor appeared. "Ah, Captain, you're awake."

"She's awake and responsive, Doctor, but there's still some confusion," Chakotay reported, feeling an absurd sense of relief when Kathryn shot him a dirty look as though he was tattling on her.

"Well, that's not surprising," the EMH responded, already scanning his patient. "How do you feel, Captain?"

"A little…nauseous, actually." She grimaced slightly at the alkaline taste she seemed to suddenly find in her mouth. "And my head…what happened…"

Her voice trailed off as she stared past Chakotay's shoulder. He turned around to see what had grabbed her attention. Trevor stood at the foot of the ramp, his hands shoved deep in his pockets as he looked worriedly inside the shuttle. Chakotay watched Kathryn closely to see if she recognized the younger man. She looked as though she had been presented with a time traveling anomaly. The kind she couldn't quite understand and usually gave herself a headache trying to.

Trevor took a few hesitant steps forward, stopping when he was only halfway up the ramp. "I…wanted to see if you were okay."

Her eyebrows drew closer together. "Trevor?"

He glanced at Chakotay and the Doctor but nodded in answer to her question.

"I know you," she said, almost grunting the last word as a wave of nausea rolled over her. She clenched her eyes shut and grabbed Chakotay's shoulder in a white knuckle grip.

"Try to take deep breaths, Captain," the Doctor instructed, preparing a hypospray. "In through the nose and out through the mouth."

She glared at the suggestion and Chakotay thought the Doctor was probably lucky she wasn't willing to open her mouth. "Can't you give her something?"

The hologram frowned at him as he placed a hypospray against her neck and triggered the contents' release into her bloodstream. "She's just come out of major surgery. I can't give her any old thing." Addressing Janeway he added, "This should help but it's a low dose."

Giving him a nod of understanding, Kathryn breathed easier as her stomach seemed to settle a bit. "What…surgery?"

All three men exchanged a look and Chakotay asked gently, "What's the last thing you remember?"

She stared at him blankly for a moment. It seemed like an innocuous question. Simple enough. She closed her eyes in concentration. What did she remember?

_Blinding lights. B'Elanna unconscious. Cold. A seedy bar. Trevor offering her his hand. All black uniforms. Gravel and grit. Dancing with Chakotay. Pain. A Cardassian. Cinnamon rolls on the sidewalk. Champagne and tuxedos. A kiss in the coat closet. Blood on her hands._

She barely managed to push Chakotay to the side as she leaned over the side of the biobed and vomited onto the deck of the shuttle. Her vision swirled and she felt strong hands holding onto her and gently rolling her back. Heat pulsed through her chest and a throbbing settled behind her eyes, but she was happy to feel a soft cushion beneath her head. She hadn't expected that. She'd expected…well, she wasn't quite sure what she'd expected, but her vision darkened and her thoughts scattered as she let herself sink into oblivion.

Chakotay watched her eyes close and looked up at the Doctor who was scanning her again.

"Is she all right?" Trevor asked nervously.

Chakotay glanced towards the foot of the bed. He could easily hear the urgency and need to know in Trevor's voice and understood it completely. Only years of the Doctor's sniping at pointlessly asked questions had made him hesitate in asking the same thing.

After a drawn out silent pause, the Doctor finally folded up the tricorder and looked at the two men. "She'll be fine." Both men released the breaths they'd been holding which received a raised eyebrow from the hologram. "Her blood pressure and pulse are both returning to normal. Scans of her brain indicate normal levels of activity."

"Then why'd she pass out like that?" Trevor interrupted.

The Doctor frowned at him. "Her system has gone through quite a shock in the past several hours. She needs rest."

Before Chakotay could question the Doctor further, Tom rounded the end of the shuttle and ran up the ramp with B'Elanna hot on his heels. The pilot barely glanced at Kathryn. "We just called over to Gretchen's place to let her know what was going on and where we'd gone–"

"But there was no answer," B'Elanna finished for him. "Harry scanned the house for us and detected no life signs."

Trevor didn't get why everyone suddenly seemed so alarmed. "So, she isn't there? What's the big deal?"

Tom glanced at him. "She has Miral with her. Gretchen wouldn't have taken our daughter anywhere without contacting us first."

B'Elanna was barely controlling herself. "We have to get over there."

Chakotay was nodding. "Of course. Do you think Harry can beam–"

"Not without telling his captain why," Tom cut him off, having already thought of that.

"What about Admiral Paris?" the Doctor asked. "Surely, he can arrange for two people to transport."

B'Elanna bit her lip and looked to Chakotay. "Owen's seen that news clip by now. He'll want an explanation."

Chakotay looked down at Kathryn's resting form. "Tell him we'll give him one, but he needs to beam you over first. Have him meet you there if it makes him feel any better. Tell him…whatever you have to, whatever you need to."

Tom gave him a nod of understanding before running out of the shuttle after B'Elanna. Chakotay pushed the hair back from Kathryn's face. They were running out of time.

* * *

><p>Kathryn opened her eyes to the sound of soft snoring. It took her a moment to recognize that she was still on the medical shuttle and another moment to remember that she had no idea why she was on it. At least the shuttle wasn't going anywhere. The engines were silent and she couldn't feel any of the subtle vibrations of warp speed that anyone who had spent as much time in space as she had could usually detect.<p>

Blinking, she turned her head to the side, half expecting to find Chakotay and was surprised instead to see Trevor passed out on the biobed next to her. A swell of anger filled her at the sight of him, but she couldn't immediately pinpoint why that was. Moving gingerly, she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed so she was facing him, studying him and trying to discern why she felt the emotions towards him the way she did. Even as she glared at his sleeping form, though, she couldn't help but notice that he looked cold.

Easing herself off the bed, she covered him with the blanket that had been laid over her. Straightening, she took the opportunity to stretch her back and try and roll out the stiff muscles of her shoulders and neck. Rubbing her hands together, she felt tenderness across her knuckles and distinctly remembered punching Trevor in the jaw. She frowned. There was something, a memory not quite formed, something about him not being her actual brother. That was disconcerting, considering she'd spent the last three years with him.

She stopped at that thought. Three years? A few vertebrae in her neck popped as she craned her head from one side to the other as though physically examining the thought. Yes, she had been with him for about that long. Him and no one else she knew. And since when did she have a brother or _non_-brother as the case may be?

Kathryn shook her head. She needed to find Chaktoay, get some answers, and consume a fair amount of coffee. And she wasn't particular about the order at this point.

A small set of stairs led to what she assumed was the main cabin of the shuttle, but before she could take more than two steps towards them, the door slid open to reveal the Doctor.

Happy to see a familiar face, she actually smiled up at him. "I guess the computer let you know I was awake."

He looked surprised at the cordial greeting. "Yes, it did, actually." He descended the stairs, ensuring that the door slid shut behind him. "How are you feeling?"

She actually considered the question before answering. "Fine."

He harrumphed and attempted to guide her back towards the biobed she'd been sleeping on. "I think I'll be the judge of that."

It was amazing how fast he could destroy her good humor. She turned back towards the door. "Who else is here?"

"You mean besides you, me, and Trevor?" he asked, slapping the younger man's feet, waking him as he walked past to pick up a tricorder. "No one. Just us three on the shuttle." Turning, he realized Kathryn was still headed out and hurried to position himself between her and the door. "Any nausea? Headache?"

Kathryn paused and let him scan her, knowing he probably should. Even though she felt fine, the thought was lodged in the back of her mind that she should be more concerned about her current predicament. As the wand traveled up and down her torso, she asked, "So what happened to me this time, Doctor? Borg? Hirogen? Malon?"

"No. None of that." The EMH looked incredibly uncomfortable. "You do remember we're in the Alpha Quadrant, don't you?"

"Yes." Her thoughts were incredibly muddled but if she concentrated she could pin down two different time frames. "We've been back three years."

He looked surprised. "And do you know where you've been during those three years?"

She started to answer and then hesitated. Frowning, she searched her memories and saw a bar of some sort, several different shuttles, a city street with stone buildings. Opening her eyes, she saw Trevor standing behind the Doctor, his hair sticking up one side where he'd been lying on it. "I was with him…until recently." He looked a lot like pictures she'd seen of her father as a young man, but she pushed those thoughts aside. "Where's Chakotay?"

"Is that guy always the first person you ask about?" Trevor muttered.

Kathryn glared at him. She was so annoyed with him that just looking at him made her angrier…and she still wasn't quite clear on why that was. So many things still felt fuzzy and disjointed in her mind, but she knew Trevor made her feel nervous. Antsy. Like she should be looking over her shoulder. It was not a feeling she enjoyed. She gestured past both of them towards the door. "Are you finished, Doctor?"

"No…I still have…more tests to run."

The word tests immediately set her on edge. Tests were not something she had any intention of enduring, and she had to resist the very strong urge to knock the tricorder out of the EMH's hand. The slight whirring emanating from the scanning wand had her grinding her teeth. "No more tests."

"All right," he stopped scanning her, "then why don't you take a seat on the biobed, and I'll just examine the scans I currently have."

She regarded the Doctor curiously. He was stalling her, and with a sidelong glance, she realized both men had positioned themselves between her and the door. A part of her brain screamed at her that they were preventing her from leaving, that she was being held against her will...but she trusted the Doctor. And Trevor.

Didn't she?

Even if she did, the feeling of claustrophobia was not getting any better. She moved forward and the EMH took a step backwards but not out of her way.

"Where are you going?"

Kathryn grit her teeth. "I need some fresh air."

"Please, Captain, if you'll just take a seat on the biobed-"

The tight feeling in her chest was getting worse. "Move aside, Doctor."

"Captain, I can't let you just–"

"Move. Aside. _Now_," she ordered, cutting him off.

His shoulders slumped in defeat and he did as she asked, making room to let her pass. Trevor frowned at him and grabbed Kathryn by the arm. "Look, I don't think…"

She froze.

_Two men had grabbed her by the arms. They'd forced her to her knees. A bright light had shown on her face._

And then she was back on the shuttle. The Doctor was standing to the right of her. She looked down at the hand wrapped around her upper arm. "Let go of me."

Trevor frowned. He'd felt her tense up and her voice sounded strained. "Kathryn?"

Her eyes snapped up, meeting his, and Trevor immediately released her and backed away. He'd seen that look in her eyes before. That glacial, feral look that she'd carried for a long time after they'd escaped the station. It had faded over the months, but several times over the years it had crept back, and he'd usually found himself trying to talk her down from some decided course of action that she'd hate herself for afterwards. He swallowed nervously. "Take it easy, Kathryn. No one here is going to hurt you."

For another moment, she teetered on the edge of fury and then, blinking a few times, the look in her eyes receded. Her forehead creased slightly in confusion before she turned away from him and headed up the stairs without another word being said. The Doctor quickly followed after her but not before raising his eyebrows in question at Trevor.

Kathryn hadn't made it far; she'd stopped almost immediately past the door. The ramp of the shuttle was open and voices could clearly be heard arguing from somewhere just outside.

"You know what she'll want to do."

"And that's not something I'm willing to let her do."

"We have to do _something_!"

Kathryn's heart clenched at the familiar sound of those three voices. B'Elanna, Tom, and Chakotay. It felt like it had been years since she'd seen them, and yet she could also recall speaking to them only a day before. She had to concentrate and reason out the two lines of thought she seemed to be having. Memories of only a day ago collided with memories of the welcome home banquet. The last time she had seen Tom and B'Elanna. Except that she had seen them yesterday. And Chakotay…he'd been here on the shuttle with her…

"Are you all right, Captain?" the Doctor asked gently, his voice quiet as he stood near her shoulder.

She hesitated. "There are a lot of memories, Doctor." Something about an implant. They told her she'd been missing. Her hands clenched into fists. "But they're all…jumbled together."

He looked worried. "Perhaps you should lie back down."

She rolled her eyes at him and stalked down the open ramp of the shuttle. The conversation had abruptly stopped as soon as her boots had hit the metallic ramp. Kathryn squinted a little as she emerged from the shuttle and peered about what looked like a giant, well-lit warehouse.

And then Chakotay was in front of her. His dark eyes seeking hers, asking all the questions he hadn't yet verbalized. She gave him a lopsided smile and put her hand on his chest, feeling him take in a deep breath at her touch.

"Would you mind telling me where we are exactly, Commander?" she asked in a teasing voice. Seeing him, the trapped feeling she'd had in the shuttle finally seemed to ebb.

His eyes crinkled slightly at the corners and he waved an arm at the two people standing behind him. "The Paris garage," he answered.

Kathryn beamed at Tom and B'Elanna, but the smile faded quickly as she appraised the young couple. They were happy to see her but were clearly agitated about something. B'Elanna radiated an air of danger that Kathryn hadn't felt since those first days in the Delta Quadrant, and Tom…nervousness was not something she easily associated with her cocky pilot, but he was nervous now. Scared even.

"All right," she said, "what's going on?"

B'Elanna glowered, "They took her. They _took…_Miral."

"Who took her?" Kathryn asked, quickly (and thankfully) recalling the memory of the three-year-old Miral recently wrapped around her legs in greeting.

"You were able to confirm they're missing then?" Trevor asked, appearing from inside the shuttle.

"They?"

"Yeah, we got…confirmation," Tom answered, his eyes cutting from Kathryn to Chakotay. "Seven is over at the house right now, scouring for evidence to where they may have gone."

"She won't find any," Trevor muttered darkly.

"_Are you an agent for Section 31?"_

"_No."_

_Pain exploded across her face as she was backhanded. Fingers dug painfully into her jaw, forcing her to look straight ahead as a voice whispered in her ear. "There is no Section 31."_

_Kathryn repeated the answer. "There is no Section 31."_

"Kathryn?"

She blinked and saw Chakotay's concern at her hesitation. She wondered how long he'd been waiting for her. "What?"

He frowned at her delayed reaction. "The people that kidnapped Miral–"

"Section 31," she interrupted him and then looked to Tom and Trevor for confirmation. "31 did this, right? That's who we suspect?"

B'Elanna growled low in her throat, but Chakotay reached for Kathryn's hand.

"Yes, that's who we suspect." He gently squeezed her fingers, ensuring that she would hear what he was about to say. "Kathryn…your mother is also missing."

"_We have ways of gaining your cooperation, Kathryn," her instructor purred._

"_Go ahead and try," she snarled, spitting blood out onto the floor. _

"_Now really, Kathryn, that's no way to act." He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head back. A gloved finger streaked through the sheen of sweat on her face. "What would your mother say if she saw you like this?" _

She swallowed thickly against a wave of nausea.

"They left this for us to find," Chakotay said, holding out a PADD for her to take.

Blinking, she accepted the device and thumbed it on. Simple lines of text scrolled across it.

**We have the old woman and the child. You have Janeway and the clone. There will be an exchange. Time and coordinates are listed below.**

* * *

><p><strong>.<br>**


	18. Chapter 18

Disclaimers in ch. 1 and notes throughout

* * *

><p>"It's okay, Kathryn," Trevor tried with a shrug of his shoulders. "I've been wondering when they'd get back around to me."<p>

Eyes, identical to his but burning with a fury he'd never quite possessed, searched his face. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

"I'm an adult clone fused from the DNA of two sources. I'm unique," he smirked, masking the nausea he was truly feeling at the idea of going back to 31. "A science experiment, remember?"

"A successful one," she admitted, finally seeing his point. She shook her head. "It doesn't matter."

"What do you mean it doesn't matter?"

"You aren't going with me."

"_With_ you?" he stammered. "What do you mean _with you_?"

She glared at him silently.

"Oh, I see," he drawled. "You think that you're going to just waltz back into their hands by yourself. _Alone_." He made a slashing gesture with his hand. "Well, you can forget that, Kathryn, because it's not going to happen."

"They have Miral!"

"And she's probably dead already!"

His statement hit her like a blow to the chest and his words rang in her memory.

"_She's dead, Kathryn. We have to go!"_

She staggered slightly and her hip bumped one of Tom's work tables as the memory surfaced. She could taste the dust that had been in the air and could almost feel the weight of the young girl that she had cradled in her arms. Pressure built in her lungs and she had to concentrate to bring Trevor's face back into focus. "I didn't…save her."

Trevor's face twisted in a grimace of anguish. He knew exactly what Kathryn was remembering and wished like hell he didn't. "There was nothing you could have done for her." His shoulders dropped. The girl hadn't been more than fourteen. "We barely got out of there with _our_ lives."

Kathryn rubbed her hands together, half expecting to feel the gritty mixture of gravel, sand, and blood that had coated her hands that day. The memory slowly receded and she shook her head as she exhaled. "I'm not going to let that happen again, Trevor."

He would lose her. He knew it. After all this time, all their struggles, everything they had gone through, she was going to just throw it all away and walk right back into that hell they had tried so hard to escape from. He ran his hand through his hair as he turned away from her. There had to be something he could say to her. Some argument that would sway her from this course.

But then, he did know her better than that.

She watched him solemnly. Watched as he ran his hand through his hair, a gesture she'd seen him do so many times. She felt the familiar pang of envy at the sight of his hair falling neatly and naturally back into place, looking as though it had never been disturbed. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Having manageable hair was definitely not a characteristic he'd gotten from her portion of the gene pool. If she ran her hands through her hair, she'd come out looking like she had gone to warp seven while sitting on the hull of a ship. Now that she thought about it, her father's hair had always been neatly styled as well. Even on Christmas morning when holopics of she, Phoebe, and her mother all looked appropriately as if they'd just gotten out of bed.

Must be a male Janeway thing, she thought. She'd have to ask her mother…except there would no longer be time for that now.

Trevor watched as the small smile on Kathryn's face disappeared and her mouth became a hard line. He had no idea what she had been thinking about that could possibly have her smiling at a time like this, but it had made him curious. For a moment, her expression had become distant and relaxed, and he knew that she must have been thinking about some time before he had even existed.

She caught him watching her, and the last remnants of emotion fled her eyes, to be replaced with simple stonewall determination. Whatever she'd been thinking of hadn't been enough to change her mind about throwing her life away on another damned rescue mission. Her safety had always been a point of contention between them, and this time, he had a sinking sensation that nothing he could do would be enough to keep her safe.

"Damn you, Kathryn," he swore under his breath loud enough for her to hear.

Kathryn watched as he stalked away from her, almost colliding with Chakotay as the older man rounded the back of the shuttle. Approaching her, Chakotay looked back over his shoulder in the direction Trevor had gone. "Everything all right?"

With a thrust of her chin, she indicated Trevor. "He doesn't deal well with the idea of sacrifice."

Chakotay looked thoughtful at that. "Well, we're going to try and minimize the danger to him – to _both_ of you as much as possible, but he will be at some risk I suppose."

Kathryn looked askance at Chakotay but chose not to correct his misinterpretation about what was worrying Trevor. "How's B'Elanna?"

"The Doctor gave her a pretty strong sedative–"

"He knocked her out?" she asked, surprised.

"No." Chakotay actually smiled. "If it was you or me, then yes, we'd be out for days. As it is, she's just a bit calmed down now."

"Ah…and Tom?"

"He's ready to fly out the door right now, but as we've still got a few hours until the exchange time…"

"I don't suppose the Doctor would be willing to give Tom a dose of that sedative?" she suggested, only half joking.

"Believe me, he almost did, but Seven came up with a list of things for him to do to keep him occupied and away from the Doctor." He gestured back towards the main area of the garage. "And actually, Seven's laid out some lunch for everyone insisting that we need to eat."

Kathryn thought of Seven's cooking lessons on Voyager. "Her way of keeping busy as well."

Chakotay nodded and offered her his arm. "So I was doing my part by coming over to fetch you."

"And make sure I ate as well," she finished for him, placing her hand on his forearm. "After all this time, you're still looking after me?"

"And I plan to keep looking after you for many years to come," he said, giving her a grin.

She gave him a quick smile back but didn't comment.

* * *

><p>Kathryn sat down at the table next to Chakotay and across from B'Elanna with more food on her plate than she could possibly eat. She nudged Chakotay in the side to get his attention. "You are going to help me eat this, aren't you?"<p>

He lowered his arm off the table to reveal an equally overflowing plate. "You're on your own, Kathryn."

"S'good," B'Elanna mumbled across from them as she stabbed another forkful of food and shoveled it into her mouth mechanically. Her dark eyes never looked up from her unseeing study of the table.

Tom dropped his plate with a loud clatter right next to his wife and sat down only to immediately stand back up and move away again, muttering something about silverware. B'Elanna's head slowly turned to where Tom had been momentarily sitting and seemed to study his plate for a long moment before spearing a piece of meat for herself. Kathryn watched her former engineer chew lackadaisically and thought she'd never seen B'Elanna move this slow in the seven…_ten_ years she'd known her.

"B'Elanna." She had to wait a full minute before the half-Klingon's dulled eyes found hers. "How much sedative did the Doctor give you?"

B'Elanna mulled over the question while she finished chewing the mouthful of food. Then she pointed her fork towards Seven. "I threatened to rip the Borg's arms off for suggesting we take the time to eat, so he gave me another dose."

Tom reappeared momentarily, set a fork down by his plate, and threw one leg over the bench, preparing to sit down, before looking back towards the table with the food. "I need salt."

"There's some right–" Kathryn tried to tell him, but he was gone again before she could point out the small seasoning bottle that was already on the table. She looked to Chakotay. "He really is jittery."

Chakotay nodded, still studying B'Elanna. "We may need to have the Doctor give her a stimulant if she doesn't snap out of this before time to leave. We need her firing on all cylinders when we go to make the exchange."

"Oh good, someone actually _is_ thinking ahead," Trevor snarled sarcastically, taking a seat at the end of the table. "I was beginning to think we were all just gathered here to have a picnic before Kathryn and I march off to our deaths."

Chakotay felt Kathryn stir next to him and knew she was glaring at Trevor. "No one is going to be marching off to their death."

"Really?" Trevor waved his hand to encompass everyone. "All you former Starfleet types got together and came up with a plan to thwart 31, did you? So what'd you decide? Have a 'pretend' exchange of prisoners? Keep a transporter lock on Kathryn and me and have us beamed out at the last possible second?"

"Something like that," Chakotay grudgingly admitted. "We have faced this sort of situation before."

"No, you haven't," Trevor snapped. "This is Section 31 we're talking about. They aren't some backwater Delta Quadrant species that's never heard of transporter technology. They know all the tricks...even the Maquis ones." He glanced then at Kathryn, his chin coming up with an air of defiance. "Tell me this, Chakotay, does your plan allow for any sort of…unscripted Janeway heroics?"

"That's enough, Trevor," Kathryn growled.

"Because you know," he ignored her warning and actually pointed at her when his eyes shifted back to Chakotay, "Kathryn here already has her own plan, and I don't think it involves living a long and happy life."

Tom slid back onto his seat and froze, his eyes bouncing from Kathryn to Trevor and Trevor to Chakotay, easily reading the building tension. "Okay, what'd I miss?"

"Kathryn decided to bypass the entire shuttle/transporter plan we came up with and just give herself up in some vain attempt at sacrifice," B'Elanna explained dryly before taking another bite of food from Tom's plate.

Chakotay pushed his plate towards the middle of the table; what little appetite he'd had was completely gone. Given Kathryn's reaction, he had absolutely no reason to doubt that what Trevor was saying was true. "Kathryn? Care to explain?"

She glowered at Trevor, her hand in a tight fist on the table. "The transporter plan won't work," she finally managed to bite out. "They'll see it coming a light year away."

"I see," Chakotay responded tightly, trying to hold onto his temper. "Why didn't you mention that earlier?"

Dropping her napkin over her plate, Kathryn turned to face him. His tone of voice dredged up memories of other times they'd disagreed and a part of her cringed. "I didn't realize it at the time. It was only after we discussed it. I remembered some of the _training_ I'd received from them, and that's when I knew the plan wouldn't work." She saw his expression darken. "For an exchange like this…they'll have contingencies in place."

"What kind of contingencies?" Tom asked.

"Dispersal fields for blocking transports, EMP fields that will knock out any weapons or communication devices." She shrugged. "And those are just the ones I know about."

Even accepting that what she was saying was probably true, Chakotay was still ready to snap. "And what did you think you were going to do?"

Kathryn bristled at his use of past tense, as though the option had been completely taken off the table by his decision alone. She had a smart retort ready to snap at him until she saw how rigidly he was sitting, how still he was keeping himself. She had enough self preservation instincts to bite back what she had been about to say.

His eyes flashed and she knew he'd seen her hesitation. She held up a hand before he could make his demand again. "If they have both Trevor and myself, at the same time, they have no reason to give up my mother or Miral."

"You were going to go alone?" he bit the question out, his voice deadly quiet.

"Yes."

"And then what?"

"I would've bargained for them to transport Miral and my mother away to a set of coordinates before I would tell them where Trevor was located."

B'Elanna was frowning. "But what good would that have done? Sending them to some random place…how would we know where to find them?"

"She would've left instructions for us to find," Chakotay supplied darkly. "A note to explain her…actions."

Kathryn didn't bother responding to his assertion. It was, in fact, exactly what she had been planning to do.

Chakotay pushed himself up from the table. "If you'll excuse me."

Kathryn didn't turn to watch him go, choosing to study the wood grain of the table instead. When she heard the clink of cutlery, she looked up to see B'Elanna pulling Chakotay's untouched plate of food closer and beginning to eat off of it. She was almost amused until she caught Trevor watching her closely. This whole mess was his fault.

Pushing angrily to her feet, she swore at him, "This changes _nothing_."

* * *

><p>"You know, the kids don't like it when mom and dad fight," Trevor remarked sarcastically as he sidled past Chakotay to stand in front of him.<p>

Chakotay's glare didn't lessen. "She hasn't changed a bit."

Trevor considered that. He had no frame of reference to compare. Kathryn had acted this way all of the time he'd known her.

After a moment of silence, Chakotay gave a heavy sigh. "You've done well to keep her alive as long as you have. Most of the time out there, it took our entire senior staff to keep ahead of her."

Trevor shrugged the compliment off self-consciously. "It's the least I could do. She suffered a lot because I didn't figure out sooner what they were doing to her."

Chakotay didn't want to delve too far into that dark prospect right now. "You got her out of there. That's all that matters."

"For all the good it did," he spat. "Now she wants to just hand herself over to them."

"We won't let her do that."

Trevor looked at him skeptically. "It's…difficult to change her mind once she's made a decision."

"I know," the former first officer admitted tiredly, "but at least we got out ahead of her on this one."

"Maybe." Trevor glanced over his shoulder, ensuring that the woman in question wasn't about to walk up on them. "There was this…one time, when we were running a transport service out on one of the belts. We'd take cargo, personnel, messages…whatever as long as you paid the fee." He shook his head, not quite sure he should be telling Chakotay this particular story. "You see, we were kind of in dire straits a lot of the time. Being on the run, we made a profit where we could."

Chakotay nodded. "I know how that is."

"Yeah, well…we weren't doing it for long or anything. We just needed to build up some credits so we could get a couple of parts. Then we'd move on. We weren't trying to make a life out of it."

Chakotay smiled faintly at the justification. "Okay."

"Well, we got this fare. A guy and some cargo he wanted moved. I can't even tell you what race he was. He had some Klingon in him by the ridges, but pointy ears and I swear he was a light blue some of the time." He rubbed his hand along his jaw uncertainly. "But he was a nasty piece of work whatever he was. Not someone you wanted to spend ten minutes around much less a twenty hour flight, but he was willing to pay top fare. So we…took him on. The ride over went as well as could be expected, except that he'd really taken to Kathryn. Even made a couple of grabs for her when she'd walk by, but she put a stop to that pretty quickly."

There was a hint of a smile on Chakotay's face. "What'd she do?"

"Broke the guy's finger." At Chakotay's snort, Trevor nodded. "Yeah, it worried me, but the guy just laughed it off, snapped his finger back in place, and left her alone for the rest of the trip. Said he liked his girls to have a bit of spirit in them, but that with Kathryn he'd be worried about having his bits cut off in the middle of the night."

"She'd do it, too," Chakotay muttered darkly. "So, what happened?"

"We arrived at the planet, unloaded the guy and his cargo, picked up a couple of new passengers and then headed back. It's when we got back that the shit hit the fan." Trevor's mouth felt incredibly dry all of a sudden. "There was a…woman there waiting for us. She was hysterical, sobbing, yelling, and it was directed at me and Kathryn. She was talking so fast the translator was only picking up about half of what she was saying, and she kept shoving a picture and a scarf at us, saying it was her daughter's. We had no idea what she was going on about, but she was beginning to draw a crowd, which was the _last_ thing we needed. We allowed her on board just so we could get her away from prying eyes, and I…stunned her."

"You _stunned_ her?" Chakotay repeated incredulously.

"I'm not proud of the fact, all right," he protested weakly, "but it was either that or drug her. We needed her to shut up."

Chakotay shook his head silently in disbelief.

"_Anyway, _Kathryn's standing there behind the woman, holding the picture, and she's got this dazed look on her face. I asked her what was wrong and she snapped out of it. Told me to transport the woman to the planet medical facility while she checked on something. I asked her what she was doing, but she just yelled back for me to get the ship ready to leave again." He paused. "It wasn't that nice of a ship or in that good of working condition that we usually did back to back trips. So after I got rid of the woman, I went back to check on Kathryn and see what she was up to. The look in her eyes had me worried." He shook his head, remembering. "When I found her, she had completely dismantled the one working replicator we had on board and had the components cannibalized into the transporter console that hadn't worked properly since we got the ship. I couldn't believe it, and I asked her what in the hell she was doing." He looked up to see if Chakotay was still following him. "We did all of our transports manually without the readings from the console."

"An old smuggler's trick," Chakotay supplied. "You don't know what's in your cargo; you can't be blamed for it."

Trevor nodded, impressed. "Exactly. We still had all the logs, but to access them was a real pain in the ass."

"It would take hooking up some sort of external interface so that you could download them and process them into a readable format."

"Which was exactly what Kathryn was doing. I still didn't know why, though, and she was _not_ in the mood to explain it to me, so I left her alone. Thirty minutes later, I was still outside the ship when it started powering up. I barely made it up the ramp before she was already lifting off." He shook his head. "Turns out that asshole's cargo had been organic. Transporter logs weren't incredibly clear, but Kathryn had been able to determine that he'd had about a half-dozen, self-powered stasis units."

Chakotay closed his eyes as he imagined it. "He was smuggling people."

"Young girls to be exact," Trevor clarified, "and if that one lady was any indication, kidnapping them would be the more appropriate term."

He was almost afraid to ask. "What did Kathryn do?"

"Well, we were already on our way back to that planet, weren't we? She already had it in her head that we were going to get that woman's daughter back. No matter the cost."

"Or the danger," Chakotay finished and received Trevor's nod. "You tried to talk her out of it?"

Trevor gave him a quick jerk of a nod. "Yeah, I did." He didn't look proud of the fact. "It was trouble we didn't need, and by the time we'd get there it would have already been more than two days. I assumed that guy would've been long gone."

"He wasn't?"

Trevor shook his head, a dark look coming over his face. "No. Kathryn tracked him down to a storefront he had on one of the main shopping drags. Apparently, that was his base of operations."

Chakotay feared what must have happened then.

"It might have gone all right," Trevor started, "except there was a…girl there, a _different_ one from the picture. She'd obviously been mistreated, and Kathryn confronted the guy about it." He swallowed thickly, remembering what had happened. "The guy laughed in Kathryn's face and knocked his hand on the wall behind him. Three of his buddies emerged from some back room, and he offered to let Kathryn know _exactly_ what had happened to the girl." He shuddered, recalling the murderous look Kathryn had given him in that moment. It had damn near frozen him to the spot it had been so cold. "And uh, we got in a firefight with them," he said, bringing himself back to the present. "The girl got caught in the cross fire, and we barely made it out of there alive."

Chakotay let his chin drop to his chest. He said a silent prayer for the young girl as well as for what Kathryn must have put herself through afterward. "Were they all killed?"

"All but one," Trevor confirmed. "He managed to follow us out onto the street. We were an easy target as I was practically dragging Kathryn away, but before he could do anything more than look at us, the entire building exploded."

Chakotay's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Kathryn?"

Trevor nodded. "I don't know how she did it, or if she'd been carrying it with her the whole time, but yeah…it was her. She told me later, that once the girl had died, none of them deserved mercy."

And that was the darkness that now lived within Kathryn that Chakotay had to acknowledge. The woman he'd known before wouldn't have gone that far even with that much provocation. It was disturbing, to say the least. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you need to know," Trevor answered gravely. "Kathryn will stop at nothing to get that little girl back. Gretchen, too, but the girl more so. You can't count on Kathryn to behave the way she always has. Even with her memories restored, she isn't the same person she used to be. Not entirely. If you try to predict her actions based on what she's done before, we'll lose her."

Chakotay nodded his understanding but was prevented from commenting as Tom swung around from behind the shuttle, startling both men with his sudden appearance.

Before either man could pose a question, Tom held up the Doctor's disengaged holoemitter. "I found this on the floor of the medical shuttle," he told them flatly. "Kathryn's gone."

* * *

><p>.<p> 


	19. Chapter 19

Apologies for the delay in posting...technical difficulties. Disclaimers in ch. 1

* * *

><p>Clutching a cup of coffee, Kathryn sank into the plush armchair situated to the side of the living room. Breathing in the steamy aroma, she let her gaze wander lazily around the room, taking in the family photos, the ancient framed photograph of someone called Benny Goodman, and the clarinet with its music stand in the corner. She didn't let her attention linger on the various Delta Quadrant knick knacks or the assorted photos of Voyager crewmembers, though. Despite her relaxed posture and appearance, she was on high alert and looking too closely at remembrances of all the people she cared for would only distract her.<p>

On the counter, two meters away from her, the implant that the Doctor had removed from her skull blinked rapidly. After he'd used the medical transporter, he'd immediately placed the chip into a stasis chamber equipped with an isolating field. However, the isolating field was now disengaged, allowing the implant's homing beacon to broadcast freely for the first time in two and a half years.

Kathryn was waiting for someone to come retrieve it. She had a feeling she wouldn't have to wait long.

The quarters she sat in were incredibly quiet, and Kathryn thought that perhaps Harry had installed soundproofing so he could practice his music without bothering his neighbors. She didn't like the quiet anymore. It reminded her of too much time spent in that cell of a room with only the sound of her usually-labored breathing to keep her company. But she hadn't had a lot of time to choose a rendezvous point of her own, and she didn't think Harry would mind terribly her use of his place for an hour or so.

She smiled inwardly when she heard beeps coming from the other side of the front door; she also liked Harry's place because you couldn't beam straight into or out of it. Something to do with the housing guidelines. Which meant that her expected guests would have to use the same entrance she had, and within fifteen seconds she heard the compromised access code confirm entry.

Two figures dressed completely in black immediately swept into the room with weapons drawn. One immediately lit on her, aiming his weapon at her, growling at her to remain where she was while the second man cleared the rest of the quarters for anyone else who might be present. Finding no one, he came back quickly and gave a nod of assurance to someone still behind her.

"I said _don't_ move!" her guard reiterated when she made to take a sip of her coffee.

Kathryn smirked at him. "I could have shot you as you walked through the door. The fact that I didn't should indicate that I have no intention of harming you here."

"Here?" the unseen man behind her asked as he walked into her view. "Do you intend to cause us harm somewhere else?"

"Perhaps not you personally," she quipped, noticing he held the implant in his hand. "Do you know who I am?"

He snorted. "We have a standing order to stun you on sight. Kathryn Janeway."

"And yet you haven't?" She eyed the weapon still aimed at her. "That's interesting."

"You didn't follow orders," he said, pulling down on his all black tunic. "You were supposed to–"

Fury coiled in her belly. "Maybe your masters have forgotten, but I don't follow _orders_ from them."

He sneered at her barb. "Where's the other one?"

It was her turn to snort in disbelief. "You really think I'm going to just give him to you?"

"Tell me where he is," he repeated.

"No."

She watched the muscle in his jaw pulse as he ground his teeth together. The sight was much more enjoyable than she would have thought. Taking what she assumed was supposed to be a calming breath, the unknown agent unlocked his jaw and asked the question she had been waiting for.

"What is it you want, Janeway?"

She smiled.

* * *

><p>Harry was losing his mind. Not only was Captain Janeway apparently back, but now his goddaughter was missing, kidnapped by someone in Starfleet if he was interpreting what Tom and B'Elanna <em>weren't<em> saying correctly. And instead of being down on the ground, actively helping them with whatever situation they'd gotten themselves into, he was stuck on the bridge of the Santiago monitoring an inert Voyager for unusual activity. A ship that if he did see someone powering up, he would feel hard pressed to report since it would probably be someone he knew. He just wanted…_needed_ to be able to help.

The console he was working on signaled an incoming comm. call and Harry frowned. There was no source data for the hail. No origination point or identified caller. He looked up in question, and the ensign manning the communications station looked chagrined.

"My apologies, Lieutenant, I'm trying to trace the source of the call now."

He nodded. "That's fine, but why did you route it to me?"

"The call is for you, sir. It was classified urgent."

Steeling his gut for bad news, Harry activated the call and felt his mouth dropping open in shock. "Captain!"

"It's good to see you, Harry." A corner of her mouth quirked upwards. "I'm afraid I don't have time for pleasantries though. I need you to put me through to Tom."

Questions raced through Harry's mind as his fingers already played across the console preparing to forward the call. "No problem, but I thought you were with Tom. Do you know if Miral–"

She held up her hand, cutting him off. "I don't want this to be a direct connection, Harry."

He froze and it suddenly all made a clear sort of sense. She had called him because she wanted the call routed through the Santiago's comm. system, making it virtually untraceable to any outside source. The churning in his stomach did not feel any better at the realization. "Captain, are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Harry."

Right. Sure. Because she had never sold that line to any of them before. He really wished he had a better idea of just what in the hell was going on.

"Harry?"

She'd seen him hesitate. He swallowed. "You wouldn't have me doing anything that would get me in trouble with Chakotay, would you, Captain?"

She smirked again but it didn't reach her eyes. "One of these days, you're going to have to start calling me Kathryn."

Well, that answered that question. Whatever she was up to, Chakotay was either not involved or was not happy about it.

"So, can you put me through?" she asked, probably knowing full well that he had recognized her evasion for exactly what it was.

He was probably going to regret this, but he gave her a nod as his fingers made the adjustments. "Connecting you now."

* * *

><p>Tom was ready to pull his hair out he was so anxious. He hated waiting in normal situations, and his daughter being kidnapped was anything but normal. He flipped a hyperspanner in his hand, over and over, end over end, trying anything to keep his mind from imagining the horrible situations he was imagining.<p>

B'Elanna had already growled at him. His constant flipping of the tool annoyed her already frayed nerves, but she was on her second circuit of the wide hangar, far enough away from him at the moment that he could continue the mindless activity. Chakotay's outburst at Kathryn's disappearance hadn't helped. It hadn't been unexpected or even uncalled for; it just hadn't helped.

So Tom continued flipping the tool in his hand as his other hand once again streaked through his thinning hair. He glanced towards the medical shuttle and wondered how Seven was coming along with getting the Doctor's mobile emitter back online. Kathryn hadn't exactly been particular when she'd turned him off, and when they'd first tried to turn him back on, the Doctor had had no auditory or vocal subroutines. Tom frowned to himself. Then again maybe Kathryn had indeed been very precise.

The console next to him beeped with an incoming call, and the hyperspanner clattered noisily to the ground as he lunged for the controls, his mind taking in the fact that it was Harry calling even as his fingers activated the screen. "Har-Kathryn!" he exclaimed at the sight of her and then bellowed over his shoulder for Chakotay before she could speak.

Kathryn winced, wishing he hadn't done that. "Tom, I need you to listen to me very carefully."

Skidding to a stop, Chakotay barely restrained himself from pushing Tom away from the console. "Kathryn, where are you?"

"I'm exactly where you think I am," she answered coolly.

"Are you crazy? What the hell do you think you're doing?" Trevor asked her angrily as he joined the two men.

"Have you seen Miral?" B'Elanna interrupted breathlessly. "Is she all right?"

"_Stop_. Now listen to me. What's done is done." She eyed Chakotay specifically before sliding her gaze to Trevor. "I've delivered half of what they wanted. Before I give them the other half, we get what we want. Tom."

He straightened when she addressed him.

"In thirty minutes, Gretchen and Miral will be beamed to the spot Chakotay and I went after my father visited me in the Delta Quadrant." Tom and B'Elanna both glanced at Chakotay and then back to Kathryn. She nodded as she spoke. "He'll be able to tell you where that is. You and B'Elanna will be there to collect them and take them somewhere safe. I'm sure Harry or your father can help you with that."

"But they're both…okay?" B'Elanna asked worriedly.

"I've been assured they're fine and have been kept in stasis since they were taken."

Tom hauled B'Elanna up against his side and kissed the top of her head.

Kathryn returned her focus to Chakotay. "Once the Parises and my mother are secure, they will call you and let you know. I'll contact you again in an hour. If everyone is safe…" she hesitated slightly before forcing herself to continue, "I'll tell you a new location, and I'll need you to…bring Trevor there."

Chakotay glanced at the younger man. "You're just going to deliver him into their waiting hands, Kathryn?"

He could see the muscle in her jaw tick. "It's the only way." She looked at the man she had called brother for the better part of three years. "I'm sorry, Trevor. I tried to convince them to settle for just me, but they refused."

Trevor blinked at that, a wisp of a memory passing ever so quickly through his mind, but he gave her a curt nod even as he chided her. "You shouldn't have gone, Kathryn. We would've come–"

"It's already done," she cut over him, her voice hardening once more. "Tom, thirty minutes."

He nodded and they saw her reach to discontinue the call.

"Kathryn, wait!"

She paused, looking at Chakotay, who seemed to have lost what he wanted to say now that he had her attention. For a brief second, she allowed her eyes to show exactly how she felt even when her voice remained hard. "I'm sorry. Janeway out."

The screen went black.

* * *

><p>Tom and B'Elanna had departed for Lake George over twenty minutes ago, and since they'd left, Chakotay had stayed frozen in one spot, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, feet shoulder-width apart. Even though his eyes were open he saw nothing. For awhile he'd stared at the back of Seven's head as she worked steadily to try and trace the source of Kathryn's call just as Harry was doing on the Santiago<em>, <em> but for many minutes now he'd seen nothing. The Doctor, finally restored, reporting that Kathryn had asked about the implant before shutting him off, had tried to engage Chakotay in nervous banter, but after several minutes even the Doctor had tired of carrying the conversation by himself. The only thing Chakotay was occasionally aware of outside his own thoughts was Trevor.

It was just like Kathryn to run off and get herself killed, but something about the second half of her plan – the bit where she was going to allow Trevor to be sacrificed right alongside herself – that part was a bit off. To the ear it sounded plausible. Section 31 wouldn't give up its two hostages without getting equal in return. The emotion Kathryn had let shine in her eyes in that brief moment before she'd signed off had convinced him that her remorse for their current state of affairs was genuine. But there was still…something.

Blinking moisture back into his eyes, he turned and eyed the man in question sitting calmly on the ramp of the shuttle. Trevor had been quiet since Kathryn had called…unusually quiet for the small amount of time that Chakotay had known the man. He could be resigning himself to his fate, but Chakotay couldn't help but think about the similarities between Trevor and Kathryn. They were both stubborn, determined, confident in their actions…and secretive.

The only reason he'd had any idea that Kathryn had made other plans was because Trevor ratted her out. But who was here to rat out Trevor's plans? The two men hadn't really discussed it, but when Kathryn called again, it was supposed to be so Chakotay could take Trevor somewhere to be returned to Section 31. But why would he need to _take_ Trevor? Was it because Kathryn knew Trevor wouldn't go on his own? Did she not trust Trevor to do his part? She'd said before that Trevor didn't approve of sacrifice.

"I have just received a message," Seven announced, her fingers flying across the console. "It is from," she paused, "Captain Proton. Buster has transported the packages to Chaotica's secret lair. No sign of the Spider Queen or any minions. He is requesting that the President of Earth join them for reassurance."

If the situation had been different, Chakotay would have probably laughed at Tom's choice of code, but Trevor was understandably confused. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Tom Paris is Captain Proton," Chakotay explained succinctly and incompletely. "Doctor, you're going on an away mission."

"Another one?" he asked, poking his head out of the shuttle.

"You need to go back to San Francisco. I think Gretchen and Miral will be waiting for you in Voyager's sickbay."

He grabbed a medkit. "I thought Voyager was being monitored."

"It is…by Harry."

"Ah. Shall I report my findings back to you?"

"Yes, I think Kathryn will want to know her mother is safe."

The hologram understood. "I'll be quick."

Chakotay nodded. "Seven, any progress?"

"No, but when the Captain calls again, I will attempt to localize the source while the call is active."

"You think that will work?" Trevor asked hopefully.

Seven hesitated before replying curtly, "It is our best chance."

She turned back to the console without another word, and Trevor addressed Chakotay. "That didn't sound all that optimistic."

Chakotay looked grim. "Seven deals in realities…not optimism."

* * *

><p>Kathryn leaned back against the cool wall, tilting her head and allowing her eyes to close. In a show of petulance, they'd locked her into a cell similar to the one she'd spent so much time in before, the only difference being that this one had an actual door. They'd no intention of keeping her comfortable while they all waited, though, and had not offered her so much as a chair or a glass of water. She'd thought, as they probably had as well, that the room would've brought horrible memories racing back, but all she really felt was anger. Anger that they had done this to her before, and anger that she was forced to allow them to do it again.<p>

A small smirk played along her lips…her anger was nothing compared to how they were going to feel.

She heard the locking mechanism on the door shift, opening to allow entrance to Commander Stone, the same agent that had killed her in front of the Cardassian. She regarded him silently, furiously.

He held up a PADD. "I know the contents of this PADD by heart. I can recite them by chapter if I wanted to." He paused haughtily. "Do you have any idea what this is, Janeway?"

She sighed and closed her eyes again, already bored with the conversation. "No."

"It's you. Everything from your childhood school reports to your service record. _Everything_ until the day you went missing from our facility."

"Went missing?" she snorted. "There's a nice euphemism you must tell your new recruits."

Stone ignored her comment. "So what I want to know is what you think you're playing at?"

Opening her eyes again, she regarded him warily. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"When you contacted your people, you told them and I quote 'the spot Chakotay and I went after my father visited me in the Delta Quadrant'." He let the statement hang in the silence. Staring her down, waiting for an answer.

Kathryn raised an eyebrow.

"Edward Janeway? In the Delta Quadrant?" Stone asked incredulously. "I don't think so. There's no mention of your father anywhere in any of your reports or logs."

Kathryn smirked, understanding now. It was true, there was no mention of the alien that had inhabited her mind on that planet taking the shape of her father. She'd resolutely refused to sully her father's memory that way. She had simply referred to him as "the alien" and explained that he'd taken on a familiar countenance to gain her trust.

"You don't even mention him in your _personal_ logs," the commander sneered at her, trying to provoke a reaction from her.

He failed. She'd surmised long ago that they'd accessed her personal logs. It was the only way they had known some of the things they'd known and tortured her with for all those months. It didn't infuriate her any less, but she refused to let it show.

"Commander Chakotay understood me perfectly, I assure you," she supplied archly, "and there was no reason for you to understand at all. If I had wanted you to know where they were going, I'd have let your people arrange the transport."

Stone appeared to be grinding his teeth. Kathryn felt a tendril of danger curling itself within her own anger. She knew this man was dangerous; he'd already killed her once, after all. But there was something darker about his violence. He wasn't nearly as detached and professional as the rest of 31 seemed to be. It was almost as though he was taking her defiance personally. She thought of the whispered conversation she'd heard once. Two men discussing the failed experiment of trying to train her. "I will _never_ be what you wanted."

He seethed at her words, pointing the PADD at her. "Know this, Janeway, before you die…you will tell me _all_ of your secrets," he promised, "including this one."

"You're mistaken. Before I die," she repeated, giving him a cold smile, "you'll know only what I want you to know."

Stone scowled at her, hatred burning in his eyes mirroring her own. "It's time to make the call."

* * *

><p>Trevor watched as Chakotay held a conversation with the Doctor at the comm. console. Once it was clear the transmission had ended, he approached. "Gretchen's all right, then?"<p>

Chakotay turned around to face him, eyeing him curiously. "She's fine. Miral, too."

"That's good." He took a breath and nodded. "That's…good."

"I didn't know you cared," Chakotay commented, watching him closely.

Trevor's eyes narrowed at the vague accusation. "For the record, I don't, but Kathryn…she'll want to know."

"It _was_ part of the arrangement she made," Chakotay pointed out.

"Forgive me if I don't trust Starfleet to keep its word."

"I was wondering," Chakotay started. "How do you feel about that anyway?"

Trevor looked up. "Feel about _what_?"

Chakotay shrugged as if he was simply making idle conversation. "Kathryn's apparently traded your life away without even asking you, and she did it to save two people you don't even care about. If I were you, I think I'd be a little mad about the whole thing myself."

Trevor snorted. "It's not the first time Kathryn's made a decision regarding both of our lives without bothering to ask me how I feel about it." He shrugged. "I'm sure she'd argue that I did the exact same thing to her."

"What do you mean?"

"Breaking her out of that cell, whisking her away into a life where she constantly lived on the run," he cited examples, "choosing not to be completely forthcoming with information regarding her past." He laughed darkly. "Take your pick."

Chakotay still wasn't convinced. "So you're just going to follow her lead? Throw your life away simply because she says?"

"Wouldn't you? _Didn't_ you? Seven years in the Delta Quadrant as her first officer?" Trevor actually smiled. "I'm sure you've noticed; Kathryn has a penchant for risky maneuvers with little regard for others around her."

The former first officer considered that a moment before shaking his head. "No, that's where you two differ. Kathryn always puts others before herself."

"And I always put myself first?" Trevor asked, darkly. "That's what you're saying, right?"

In answer, Chakotay shrugged, but before he could comment further, the comm. signaled an incoming call. Dropping their argument for the moment, both men hurried to Seven's side and waited a fraction of a minute for her to finish a tracking algorithm before they activated the call.

Kathryn's face appeared on the screen, and this time two armed men were visible in the background behind her. She wasted no time on preliminaries. "Miral? My mother? Are they safe?"

Chakotay nodded. "Yes, the Doctor reported they were both fine."

Anyone not watching her closely would have thought she hadn't even heard the answer. Her expression barely changed, but Chakotay noticed the set of her jaw immediately became less rigid. Her eyes looked a little lighter.

Outwardly, she gave a curt nod. "Good." Her eyes shifted to Trevor. "It's time."

His chin came up. "Where do I need to go?"

"You remember that time you found me in the bar?"

He snorted. "You'll have to be a bit more specific, Kathryn. There were several times."

She smiled tightly and her mock amusement didn't remotely reach her eyes. "The time I was matching shots with the Terellian and the Chameloid."

Trevor felt his stomach churn. He remembered that scene quite clearly. It had only been weeks after the bombing that had killed the young girl. "I remember. I'm surprised you do." He could just see Seven out of the corner of his eye, her hands flying across the console she was working on. "As I recall, you lost that particular drinking game."

Irritation flashed in Kathryn's eyes. "Since you seem to remember it so well, I guess you'll recall what I told you when you found me."

"I remember," he confirmed, barely able to breathe. Playing for time, he shrugged in what he hoped looked like a disinterested manner. "I didn't listen then. What makes you think I'll listen now?"

"Because this time you have no choice," Kathryn bit out then glanced to her side at someone off screen. "I'm sorry it has to be this way, but it's the best I can do."

She killed the connection before he could say another word in argument. Trevor felt sick to his stomach, his fists clenched on the surface of the console. "Seven…_please_, tell me you found her."

The blonde didn't respond to him, her fingers still working furiously. Futilely, if he knew Kathryn at all. Chakotay bumped his side in question.

"So where're we going?"

Trevor muttered, "To hell."

"What?"

For a long time, Trevor had feared this day would come. The day when Kathryn would go somewhere he couldn't follow. He regarded Chakotay solemnly. "When I found Kathryn in that bar, she told me to leave her the hell alone. That I should have never come looking for her." He took in a mournful breath. "She told me…to go to hell."

Chakotay grabbed hold of Trevor's jacket in both fists and jerked him to within an inch of his face. "You're lying," he seethed. "You're just saying that to save your own ass."

Trevor didn't even try and fight him off. "You know I'm not." He didn't blink. Didn't look away from the pain he saw in the older man's eyes. Knew it mirrored his own. "Kathryn never had any intention of turning me over to them. She's gone."

* * *

><p>.<p> 


	20. Chapter 20

Disclaimers way back in ch.1 Notes throughout.

* * *

><p>Kathryn laughed darkly to herself. She shouldn't. Not only did sitting in the cell by herself laughing make her look deranged, it also made her cough. And coughing led to explosions of pain behind her eyes, around her rib cage…it even made her abdomen ache. But she couldn't help it. They were the ones that programmed her to dismiss pain as insignificant, and now they thought they'd get her to talk just by roughing her up a bit.<p>

She laughed again. Coughed. Winced. Moving slowly, she pushed herself up to a sitting position in the corner, letting her head fall back against the walls. Moving both hands in unison, as no one had bothered to remove the cuffs from around her wrists, she reached for her temple. Nice bit of swelling there as well as the tacky feel of matted hair. The metal cuff pulled slightly at her swollen right wrist when she lowered her hands, causing her to hiss through her teeth. Looking more closely at it, she could tell it was already turning a light blue shade on one side. Had to be broken. It and her ribs. At least two on her right side. Her nose had been bleeding profusely as well, but she couldn't tell if it was broken or not. She couldn't breathe through it; she knew that much.

Stretching cautiously, Kathryn pushed the air out of her lungs in a long, slow exhale. Her back throbbed. They could say what they wanted to about it being a controlled interrogation, but those first few hits had definitely been emotional. 31 did not like being played. Or more specifically, Stone didn't.

The scheduled half hour had passed with no sign of Trevor at the random set of coordinates she'd given them. It had amused her to wait and watch them assume they'd have him back in their custody. Eventually it dawned on Stone that her distinct lack of concern about Trevor's absence was rather telling. She wasn't expecting him. The commander had approached her, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, and demanded to know where they could find the clone. She'd told him verbatim where she'd told Trevor to go. He hadn't appreciated the sentiment. He also hadn't appreciated her remark that maybe there was a reason he hadn't been promoted yet past commander.

Stretching out the muscles in her neck, she couldn't help but think that 31 had really gone downhill on their interrogation techniques. Either that or Stone was not exactly a prime example of their efficiency. Beating her soundly for a good ten minutes had done nothing to pry the answers they wanted from her. Continuing the questions, interspersed with punches and kicks for the next couple of hours had changed nothing either. Out of sheer frustration, Stone and his cronies had thrown her back in the cell she'd been occupying earlier.

So she sat and waited. As far as she was concerned, the only thing left that they could do was kill her. She had no intention of cooperating with them, and they'd trained her to resist any and all attempts at coercion. It was possible, she supposed, that they could eventually break her, but by then, Trevor would be long gone. She could tell them about how she'd spent the last two and a half years on the run, the hideouts they'd used, the jobs they'd held, but Trevor was smart enough not to go back to any of those. He'd be safe…probably even safer than he'd been when she'd been with him.

The only reason they'd even stayed in the Alpha Quadrant to begin with was because of her. She'd flat out refused to leave when he'd pulled her out of this hell hole the first time. She hadn't known why or been able to explain it, but whenever he'd suggested moving out any further than Deep Space Nine, she'd practically had a panic attack. At least now she could attribute that to some lingering memory of being stranded in the Delta Quadrant.

The locking mechanism on the door clicked, and Kathryn jerked her head up. Damn it. She'd actually passed out. And if the stiffness in her muscles was any indication, it had been for at least a couple of hours if not more. She glanced down at her wrist and noticed it was now dark blue with the bruising creeping into her hand as well. Definitely several hours. The door opened, and a guard she'd only seen in her periphery stomped in and deposited a metal chair about two meters away from her before stomping back out. His antics amused her, which was probably a good indication of how punch drunk she actually was. She flexed her legs, trying to get some circulation going back in them and waited, assuming this was going to be the start of round two.

But then they did manage to surprise her. Two guards came in, moving sideways through the door, and guiding a third hooded man between them. Throwing him bodily into the chair and cuffing his hands behind him and to the chair itself, one of the guards smirked at Kathryn. "Thought you might like some company."

As they left the room, the guard pulled the hood off. He hadn't needed to. Kathryn had known who it was as soon as she'd seen him, hooded or not. She could barely breathe his name. "Trevor."

The younger man shook his hair out of his face and smirked at her, but the humor he displayed didn't reach his eyes. "You know, Chakotay has one hell of a right hook." He looked her over as he gave her a chance to respond. They'd definitely roughed her up which sadly didn't surprise him. "He managed to break my jaw with one punch. That hologram of yours had to heal it before I could come find you."

"W-what…" she stammered.

"Chakotay was a trifle bit upset when he realized you'd played us. I was the closest target of opportunity." His eyes trailed over her, taking in the dried blood and the bruises. "Looks like your captors weren't too pleased either."

The shock of the situation was slowly fading for Kathryn. "Y-you came _looking_ for me?"

Trevor allowed his act of nonchalance to fade. "Of course, I did Kathryn. What did you expect?"

Fury at him made her eyes tear up. "You shouldn't have. Damn it! _Why_, Trevor?" She couldn't help the anguish in her voice. He'd as good as killed himself. "Why would you do that?"

"You're my sister, Kathryn," he said seriously then shrugged as much as his restraints would allow. "Whether you want to be or not, you're the only family I've got."

Clapping sounded at the doorway to the cell and Stone sauntered in, slowly bringing his hands together in an exaggerated manner. "How emotionally human of you," he said disdainfully, coming to a stop at Trevor's side, "and incredibly stupid."

"It's who I am," Trevor quipped. "You should know; you helped make me."

Stone looked down at Kathryn. "Was he as much of a disappointment to you as he was to us?"

Kathryn glared at him but didn't answer.

Stone's lip curled and he lashed out, kicking her thigh. "I asked you a question, Janeway."

"Hey!" Trevor shouted over her groan. "Leave her alone."

Stone laughed darkly at the outburst and grabbed Kathryn by the hair, yanking her head back, forcing her to look up at him. "Or you'll do what?"

"Touch her again and I'll make sure your name and picture are broadcast on every single news station in the quadrant."

Kathryn and Stone both stared at him.

"Let her go."

Stone glanced down at Kathryn and then pushed her away, rising back to his full height and turning back to Trevor. "What are you talking about?"

"You're going to let her go. Right now. There's a shuttle right outside this station within transport distance. She's going to beam to it, and you are never going to go after her or any of her people ever again," Trevor explained. "If you do, Section 31 will find itself on every news headline in this quadrant."

Stone continued to stare at him in disbelief. "What game are–"

"No game," Trevor interrupted. "If you don't believe me, go ahead and scan for the shuttle. You'll find it." He paused before adding, "When you do, you'll notice it's transmitting a signal back to Earth, and if I were you, I wouldn't do anything to interrupt that signal."

"And why not?"

"It's the only thing keeping you from being on the news already."

"Maybe," Stone allowed, his eyes flicking to some unseen spot behind Trevor. "While we wait for confirmation of this fantasy shuttle of yours, why don't you tell me what the hell it is that you think you're doing?"

Trevor shrugged. "I can, but you should know, the clock is ticking. If Kathryn isn't on that shuttle within thirty minutes of my capture, they'll go to broadcast."

"Who will?"

"The entire crew of Voyager." He looked at Kathryn, who was hanging on his every word as closely as Stone was. "The shuttle signal is being broadcast to three different locations. Three. Different. Voyagers. And each one of them is retransmitting it to three more Voyagers and so on. If that signal stops transmitting," he returned his attention to Stone, "you block it or blow the shuttle out of the sky, every single Voyager will be making a call to their local news agency."

Stone considered this for a moment before shrugging it off. "And saying what? They know...nothing."

"They know their captain is alive. They know you kidnapped her, brainwashed her, and tried to turn her into a killer," Trevor informed him. "It'll be a sensational story. _Section 31: The Dark Arm of Starfleet_." He smirked. "A covert organization as the lead news story of every planet in the system is hardly covert." He glanced at Kathryn again. "Now, I'm sure you could probably strong-arm FedNews into not releasing the story, but that won't stop it from being played on Vulcan. Bajor. Bolarus. Qo'nos. Not to mention every single Earth hometown of a Voyager crewmember."

"No respectable news venue will touch a story like that without proof," Stone snarled, "and you have none."

Trevor feigned concern for a moment before giving Stone another cocky smile. "That might be true if it weren't for the holovid of Kathryn."

"You mean that blurry little news video the entertainment network supposedly had of her?" Stone sneered. "We confiscated that and have already reported it as a hoax." He snorted. "It's _buried_."

"It wasn't very good quality anyway," Trevor agreed, "but the one _we_ shot of Kathryn as she recounted the atrocities she suffered at your hands…_that_ one is _great_ quality. Really clear picture." He chuckled. "And to be perfectly honest, it wasn't intentional, but as Kathryn's recounting her first month with you, in the background you can see that news story you're referring to playing on the vid screen. Really gives a good sense of time to the story. Makes it feel very…present."

Stone's fists were clenched so tightly his knuckles had turned white. "It can still be refuted."

"You could try, but the damage will already be done. You really think some stuffed shirt admiral making an announcement is going to change people's minds?" Trevor dismissed the possibility. "The public loves the Voyager crew. Their story is the stuff of legends. And Kathryn?" He indicated her with his chin. "She _disappeared_! That was _sensational_ news! By kidnapping her, 31 made her more famous than she _ever_ would have been." Stone scowled at her, but Trevor ignored him. "And now you have over a hundred people coming forward and swearing they saw her, interacted with her, _know_ what happened to her – only to have her mysteriously disappear again." He laughed. "Good luck sweeping that under the rug."

"Mallek to Commander Stone."

Stone slapped his comm. badge with barely controlled force. "Report!"

"There is a shuttle of unknown design positioned outside the station at a distance of 25,000 kilometers. There is one human life sign aboard, and the shuttle is transmitting a signal back to earth."

"How long has the clone been in our possession?"

"Twenty-one minutes, sir."

Stone silenced the comm. line without acknowledging the ensign. He glared at Trevor. "I want those holovids. All copies."

Trevor shook his head. "No deal. Those videos guarantee the continued safety of Kathryn and her crew. It'll keep you honest to know they're out there." He paused, gauging Stone's anger. "Clock's ticking, Commander. Let her go."

"I let her go…her entire crew keeps quiet about this whole thing?" Stone spat. "I can't trust that."

"You have to," Trevor countered. "Unlike you, they're good people. They'll keep their word."

"And what about you?"

"Kathryn goes free. I stay."

"No!"

"Stay out of this, Kathryn!" Trevor snapped, his tone whip-like and harder than he'd ever directed towards her.

Stone actually smirked. "Fine." He signaled towards the door, and two guards came into the cell. "Take her to the transporter room and beam her to the shuttle. You can get the coordinates from operations."

"Trevor, what the hell are you doing! I'm not leaving without you!" Kathryn argued, struggling against the two guards as they dragged her up to her feet. "Take your hands off umph–"

Trevor stared hard at a spot on the wall, refusing to look her way even when one of the guards slapped his hand over her mouth. Stone chuckled and addressed the guard, "Now, Lieutenant, you take good care of her. She's not to be harmed."

"Aye, sir."

Kathryn's muffled grunts continued as the two men dragged her out of the room still kicking and struggling. Silence filled the room for several minutes until the ensign from operations reported that the transport had been completed as ordered and the shuttle was moving away from the station.

Stone closed the comm. line for a second time and flexed the fingers of his right hand, balling it into a fist. "Since we're being honest with each other allow me to say, the Section was actually much more interested in getting _you_ back." Stone shrugged. "As for her, I can arrange to kill Janeway anytime I want."

Trevor's eyes snapped back up just in time for Stone's fist to slam into the side of his head, the force of the hit toppling him and the chair to the floor. With no way to break his fall, his head thudded against the hard floor of the cell. As he slipped towards unconsciousness, Stone towered over him. "And this time when I kill her, I promise you…Kathryn Janeway will stay dead."

* * *

><p>"Trev…vor…Trev..."<p>

The Doctor stood watch over his patient and monitored her vital signs closely. She'd been mumbling for the past half hour, but it was only within the last few minutes that her words had become comprehensible. Kathryn Janeway was regaining consciousness, and the hologram had no intention of facing her alone. He tapped his comm. badge. "Doctor to Chakotay. I suggest you come down here."

"Is she coming around, Doctor?"

The EMH watched her hands tighten into fists. "Yes, and I have no doubt that she'll be extremely agitated when she does."

"You don't want to be alone with her, Doctor?" Chakotay asked, appearing in the doorway before the hologram had even closed the comm. channel.

Kathryn groaned, her head thrashing to the side, her back arching off the bed. "Trev…or! No!"

Chakotay rushed forward, reaching her side just in time to keep her from falling to the deck. "What the hell's the matter with her?"

The Doctor hurriedly prepared a hypospray even as he consulted the readings on the console. "Nothing. She's just waking–"

"TREVOR!" Kathryn woke up fighting, her hands lashing out as she practically bolted off the bed. Chakotay stepped back out of her reach, but the Doctor easily caught one of her flailing arms by the wrist, immediately capturing her attention. She yelled something guttural and inarticulate at him, but to his credit, he simply held up a hypospray.

"I don't wish to sedate you again, but I will if I have to."

Her breathing was harsh, fast staccato gulps of air, and she glared at him, her chest heaving. "Let go of me."

"Gladly," he said, committing action to words and dropping her wrist.

She flexed her hand as her eyes cut to Chakotay. "You _left_ him there."

It wasn't a question but an accusation. "We had to. Once you're safe on the planet, we'll go back and try–"

"He'll be dead by then," she cut him off. "Or worse."

"It was his idea," Chakotay informed her. Her eyes flashed dangerously at him, and he was strongly reminded of the woman she'd been when he'd met her in the bar six months ago.

"You think I don't know that?" she snarled, turning her back to him and sliding off the biobed on the Doctor's side, ignoring his protests. "How did I get here, anyway?"

The two men exchanged a look, but the Doctor answered her. "You were transported to our shuttle from the space station. When you arrived, you were injured and…incoherent." He looked incredibly uncomfortable at the admission. "I had to sedate you."

"I wasn't…" Memories crowded her mind. She'd still been trying to reintegrate the past three years of memories with the rest of her life before she'd left for the space station. Trying to recall the last minutes on the space station was like trudging through mud. "Someone…a guard had his hand over my mouth…they were dragging me away…from Trevor." Kathryn closed her eyes trying to recount. "We were in the transporter room…I bit down…" Flashes of the struggle raced through her mind. "We all fell to the floor…there was two…three of them, holding me down. They jabbed something in my neck…" Opening her eyes, she shook her head. "Then nothing."

The Doctor nodded understanding at her confusion. "When I was finally able to scan you properly, I found a persistent agent present in your system as well as a hallucinogen."

"The hallucinogen is what made it necessary to sedate you," Chakotay said, joining the explanation. "If we'd only done that and not had the Doctor with us, we would've missed the other chemical completely."

Kathryn looked from one to the other. "I don't…what are you saying?"

"I have to do further testing to be sure, but my initial findings indicate that the second chemical I removed from your system was targeting your brain's memory center," he said grimly. "Within a few hours, it would have obliterated all of your short term memory, and if left untreated…"

"I would've lost everything," Kathryn finished for him.

The EMH nodded.

"They didn't know you were on board, Doctor. They scanned the shuttle and only saw one life sign." An idea formed in her mind, and she looked up at both of them. "They assumed you would knock me out and head for Earth."

"And by the time we reached it, you wouldn't have remembered anything," Chakotay said, following her line of thought.

"Exactly." She paced the short length of the shuttle area, one hand on her hip. "How long until we reach Earth?"

"I set the autopilot on standard orbit when I came down here," Chakotay answered. "What do you want to do?"

When she turned back to face them, Chakotay was actually glad to see the familiar glint in her eye.

* * *

><p>Stone stood at the foot of the biobed, staring disdainfully at the bruised, naked, trembling body on it. "Pathetic."<p>

"Lower the force field…and I'll show you pathetic," Trevor ground out through clenched teeth. He couldn't look around to see Stone as the force fields held him rigidly in place, but his threat was nothing more than a bluff and they both knew it. After the beating Stone had given him before bringing him here to the lab, Trevor knew he'd be hard pressed to defend himself even if he was given the chance. Not that he was expecting one. Considering how badly his muscles were already shaking, he probably wouldn't even be able to stand without assistance.

And they'd only administered one drug to him so far. One that had immediately caused his mouth to go dry and his body had begun to shiver. His eyes cut to the left as he was finally able to see Stone approach the bed where he could see him.

"You look a little warm," Stone remarked snidely. "Guess that drug they gave you really did spike your temperature." He glanced at the readings above Trevor's head. "104 and still climbing. Impressive. What a waste that I'm finally only able to say that about you now."

"Never wanted…to impress you…anyway."

"That's not completely true. At the beginning, you very much wanted us to like you. Didn't you?" Stone smiled. "You were even _eager_ to become an agent."

"Not an…agent," Trevor said, trying to keep his teeth from chattering, "a handler…_her_ handler." He took a shaky breath. "Anything I've ever done...has been...to protect her."

Stone's smile had disappeared. "I think…you're lying. Just like you've done all of your very short life."

Trevor managed to shake his head the slightest bit. "No. I played you…from the minute I found out…she hadn't _voluntarily_ taken my place…to be killed." He managed to control his trembling for a moment. "I was never…yours. I'm…a Janeway…blood to bone."

Stone slapped his hand against the force field, causing it to shimmer. "You're an experiment grown out of a Petri dish." He looked towards the doors of the lab. "Our scientists are going to open you up and examine every single line of your genetic code. When they're finished, you'll be nothing more than medical waste and cells examined by a computer."

"Better that…than what Kathryn…will do to you."

"Is that the hope you're holding onto?" Stone sneered. "That your precious Kathryn will avenge you? Well, let me fill you in on a little secret. We gave your dear sister a parting gift. By now she doesn't even remember you, and in a few more hours, she won't even know who she is. When our little drug has finished its job, she'll be lucky if she remembers how to feed herself."

"Mallek to Commander Stone."

He was still enjoying the way Trevor's face had paled when he hit his comm. badge. "Go ahead, Ensign."

"Sir…there's a special report about to air on FedNews. I really think you should watch it."

Stone rolled his eyes. "Fine, send it down here."

The vid screen on the far wall lit up with a close-up shot of a single Bajoran female sitting behind a news desk, a scrolling banner indicating that the story about to air was "Breaking News". At some off-screen signal, the reporter began addressing the camera.

"_Good afternoon. A little over three years ago, the USS Voyager arrived in the Alpha Quadrant in a blazing ball of flame after seven years of accidental exile in the Delta Quadrant."_

Stone's gut began churning; no breaking news story about Voyager could be anything good. He hailed the operations center immediately. "What the hell is this? Why haven't we blocked it?"

"We can't, sir. It's a live feed. We need higher authorization to break into the signal."

"_One week later, Voyager's captain, Kathryn Janeway, went missing. She was last seen leaving this bakery in her hometown of Bloomington, Indiana."_

Stone watched as the news showed security footage of Kathryn walking out a door, clutching a bag of rolls. A person couldn't actually tell what kind of rolls they were just by seeing the picture, but he'd actually been there that day. He knew they were cinnamon rolls. He'd seen them spill out of the bag and into the alley. It had been their one mistake.

"_When she didn't return home that morning, security officials conducted a thorough search of the area. They found what they believed was sufficient evidence to conclude that Captain Janeway's disappearance was actually a kidnapping."_

The old news footage of the mouth of the alleyway surrounded by security teams was shown as the reporter continued speaking.

"_Despite a rigorous investigation and a media frenzy that kept Captain Janeway's image in the news for months, she was never seen or heard from again." _The reporter paused and the glee in her eyes as she looked at the camera was evident for anyone looking to see. _"Until today."_

The close-up camera view of the anchor desk pulled back to reveal Kathryn Janeway sitting at the desk next to the reporter.

"_Captain Janeway, welcome to the show. Welcome home, too, as I understand it."_

"_Thank you. I'm very lucky to be home."_

As soon as Kathryn spoke, Stone heard a deep, throaty chuckle emanating from the man on the biobed behind him. It was all the commander could do to hold himself still as a wave of fury rushed through him, the roaring in his ears making it impossible to hear the reporter's pathetic gushing over a woman he should have let die three years ago.

"…_so can you tell us a little bit about your experience."_

"_Before we get to that, there's something I need to address first."_ Kathryn turned away from the anchor and spoke directly to the camera instead.

"_I'm speaking now to the people who kidnapped me. I _remember_. __**Everything**__. I know who you are. I know where you are, and I know what you do. I know what you've done to others. I know what you tried to do to me. If you don't want this information to be broadcast to every news service in the quadrant then I suggest you listen very closely to what I am about to say."_

She paused and the camera zoomed in even closer on her face, the stage lights playing heroically along the scar on her jaw. _"You have something of mine. I want him back. **Now**. Or your names, faces, and operations will be on every vid screen from here to Deep Space Nine. And you know – I'll do it. You have six hours."_

* * *

><p><em>.<br>_


	21. Chapter 21

Disclaimers ch 1 Notes throughout :)

* * *

><p>"Captain Janeway?"<p>

The light touch of a hand on her shoulder had Kathryn lashing out and racing from a sound sleep in a poorly padded chair to on her feet, wide awake, and in a fighting stance in less than a second. But all she saw in front of her was a wide-eyed nurse backing away from her, clutching her hand to her chest. Kathryn quickly surveyed the room looking for any hidden threats, but the room was bathed in the muted dark of night outside and artificial lights inside mimicking the hour. The window blinds were still drawn, but the indicator lights above the biobed glowed in acceptable parameters, shedding eerie greens and yellows in the room. She didn't hear anything to alarm her other than her own sharp breathing.

She glanced at Trevor, still asleep under the white hospital sheet and blanket. His breathing was normal, the steady rise and fall of his chest calming Kathryn more than her own assertions that the room held no threat. She looked back to the nurse, who was still clutching her hand protectively, and felt the pain in the back of her own hand from where she had obviously knocked the nurse away from her.

Straightening, she couldn't bring herself to feel too bad about it. She'd been there for three days. The entire medical staff knew she was…jumpy. "What?"

The nurse blinked several times before answering. "There's someone here to see you."

Kathryn's chin came up. "Send them in."

The nurse shook her head. "He said he wants to meet with you privately. He's waiting for you in the Reflection Room. Ground floor." She hesitated. "He said it was very important that you come right away. Alone."

Kathryn immediately cursed the fact that she had sent Chakotay home. He'd needed to go home, get some real sleep, but she now realized that _They_ had probably been waiting for an opportunity like this to present itself. Whoever it was that wanted to talk to her obviously didn't want to be seen, and yet she had no intention of leaving Trevor in the room unguarded.

"Are any of my crew still here?"

"Of course," the nurse nodded, gesturing outside the doors of the critical care unit, "there are two gentlemen in the waiting room…like always."

Kathryn felt a small measure of relief. She'd been so obsessed with Trevor's condition, she hadn't realized until the day before that her crew had set up some sort of rotation so that there would always be someone there. It was one more thing she was going to have to remember to thank them for. "Could you have them come in, please?"

The nurse nodded and quickly left the room. As soon as the door closed behind her, Kathryn bent over and removed the phaser from the holster on her right ankle. Lifting up the covers slightly, she slipped it into Trevor's limp hand, hoping like hell he wouldn't need it. She brushed his dark hair back from his forehead, thankful to feel how cool his skin was now in comparison to how hot he'd burned when he'd first arrived.

There was a light knock on the door, and she straightened, her hand going protectively to the small of her back where she carried another phaser. "Enter."

The door frame was immediately filled with the broad-shouldered frames of Mike Ayala and Kerry Fitzpatrick. "Captain?"

Kathryn breathed easier knowing she could leave Trevor in the care of these two men. She gave them both a tight smile. "It seems I'm wanted for a private audience downstairs. Will you stay with him until I get back?"

The two men exchanged a glance, and then Fitzpatrick moved further into the room. "I'll stay with him, Captain."

"And I'll be going with you," Mike said at her questioning look.

"I don't think–"

"It's not up for debate…ma'am."

Kathryn was actually amused and truly believed Mike meant it. She could argue with him until she was blue in the face, but it wouldn't do any good. She hesitated though. Her instructions had been to come alone, but then she never had done what they wanted to the letter. Why start now? "All right. Let's go then."

Neither of them spoke on the 'lift as it carried them down to the ground floor of Starfleet Medical. When the doors opened, the floor itself was deserted. Kathryn looked up at Mike. "You're armed, right?"

He nodded silently to her whispered question, his eyes continually scanning the floor. He indicated a sign that pointed down the hall for the Reflection Room, and they moved together with Mike staying one step behind her. The first sign of life they saw was two men standing at parade rest, flanking a highly polished oak door-frame. The sight of their all-black uniforms had Kathryn's heart racing as her conscience snapped at her. She'd been a fool to think bringing Ayala with her would do anything more than get him killed.

As they drew closer, the guard on the right straightened to attention. "The meeting is to be private. No security allowed inside for either party."

She actually felt a bit relieved at that and gave Mike a slight nudge. "Don't worry. I'll call you if I need you."

He was clearly not happy about it as he eyed the two men. "Don't get too close to anyone in there."

She nodded to let him know she heard him even if she didn't think it would actually do any good. When she took a step forward and he didn't stay with her, the guard that had spoken opened the heavy oak door for her.

Stepping inside the Reflection Room, she was forced to acknowledge the beauty of the room. Soft gold lighting accented with blues and greens filled the room. For other people in difficult situations, she was quite sure the room offered a quiet, comforting place away from the doctors, nurses, and the sick. But for her, with everything she'd been anticipating happening, the room felt claustrophobic.

The sound of the heavy door being closed behind her, sealing her in, only heightened the suffocating sensation. It didn't help that she was not alone in the room. There was a single other figure in the room, up near the front, seated on one of the padded wooden benches.

It was only when the door closed that the figure got to his feet and turned to face her. Kathryn did not believe for a second that he hadn't been aware of her presence, more so that he'd merely been waiting for the assurance that they were indeed alone. As she strode down the center aisle, her boots making no sound against the deep blue carpeting, she studied him.

He was an older man. Human with thick white hair brushed neatly back, wearing a dark civilian suit that was actually cut quite flatteringly. His eyes were a light shade, possibly green, but impossible to tell for sure at a distance. Heeding Mike's advice, she stopped well away from him, choosing not to close the distance between them completely.

They regarded each other silently for a moment before finally he asked, "Do you know who I am, Captain?"

She had to admit he looked familiar, but she couldn't place him in any of her memories. "No."

He smiled faintly, apparently amused. "My name is Robert G. Hall."

The name held no meaning for her and she raised a single eyebrow in question.

"I'm the Secretary of the Interior. I serve on the Federation Cabinet, and I am a direct adviser to President Miosal."

A chill ran up Kathryn's back, and she felt the small hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. "You're also Section 31."

Hall's smile faded. "Your casual use of that name is one of the many things I've come here to discuss with you this evening." He gestured to the bench he'd been sitting on. "Won't you join me?"

She got the distinct impression it was not an invitation she could refuse, but instead of sitting next to him, she chose to sit on the bench in front of his. It was a bit awkward to turn on the bench so that she could speak to him, but at least the back of the bench she was now leaning on gave her some protection. He probably wasn't the type to get his own hands dirty, but that wasn't a confirmation she wanted to get the hard way.

"Thank you for meeting me here," he said, taking his seat again and choosing not to comment on her choice. "Despite its comforting ambiance, this room is hardly ever used." He smiled genteelly at her. "People still tend to think of these rooms as having a religious connotation instead of simply being a place of refuge. Hospitals, even in this day and age, can be incredibly trying places." He paused. "But I suppose that's not news to you. Your record indicates you've spent your fair share of time in facilities such as this one."

"What's your point?"

He gestured towards the high, arched ceiling. "Have you ever sought comfort before in a place like this?"

"No."

"Not even after the death of your father?" Hall held his hand up in a placating motion. "Forgive me, that was indelicate. I–"

"My father died under the ice," she bit out. "_Not_ in a hospital."

"But you were in one for several days following the accident," he countered. "Did you ever seek…comfort during that time?"

She hadn't. The emotional shock of waking up in the hospital and seeing her sister's tear-stained face, remembering all that had happened had sent her into an emotional stupor for months. And damn him for bringing it up.

"Is this really what you brought me down here to talk about?" she snapped. "My _tragic_ past?"

He seemed disappointed. "Again, my apologies. I spend too much time with politicians who always want to talk about anything besides what they really want to know for as long as possible. Whereas Starfleet officers would rather get business out of the way first." At her lack of reply, he gave a little sigh and bobbed his head. "To business then. How is your brother doing?"

She could feel the reassuring weight of her concealed phaser press against her lower back as she straightened in her seat. "Why don't you tell me?"

"He's expected to make a full recovery, from what I understand."

Yes, that was what the doctors had finally told her this morning. "Will he?"

"I don't see why not." Hall settled back into his seat, looking supremely unconcerned. "That is, unless you have disclosure plans you'd like to tell me about."

"Still worried about your precious little section, are you?" she asked. "Good. You should be."

"Now, Kathryn," he said, "that's no way to be. That attitude won't help either of us."

His voice sounded more like a kindly grandfather scolding a child than a dangerous man giving her a deadly warning. It made Kathryn's stomach clench. "Why should I want to help you?"

"The Section held up their end of the deal. You got the boy back."

"The _boy_?" Kathryn was incredulous. "_Trevor_ was broken, bleeding, and in a coma when he arrived. He was almost dead. They didn't know if he was going to survive–"

"But he is…you said so yourself."

"You said it; I didn't." Her chin came up as she realized something. "That's why you waited until tonight, isn't it?"

He waved his hand dismissively. "Let's just say there have been some unfortunate…interactions between my section and your family. But I'd like to think those are all in the past now."

"_Interactions_," she repeated. "Is that what you call them?"

Hall sighed. "I want you to know that most of the actions taken against you were not sanctioned by the Section."

"_Most_?"

"We did want to recruit you for the mission to Cardassia, and we did intend for that mission to succeed with or without your cooperation. Now the way Jonas interpreted those orders–"

"Wait. Who's Jonas?" she asked, her heart clenching at the sound of that name and the memories it evoked. He couldn't mean _the_ Jonas…

"Commander Stone's real name was William Jonas." Hall waved away the question with impatience. "You didn't think his name was actually Stone, did you?"

Kathryn swallowed tightly. "I had a crewman on Voyager named Jonas."

Hall regarded her thoughtfully with the slightest trace of an almost…sad smile. "Yes. We know."

"You _know_?"

He seemed irritated to be discussing the matter. "Despite Michael Jonas' status as a Maquis, Agent Stone maintained good relations with his brother. The Section allowed the continued communication because we were gaining valuable intelligence on Maquis activities. Until, of course, the ship he was on disappeared into the Badlands."

"The Val Jean," she said. "Followed by Voyager."

"Yes." Hall folded his hands in his lap. "The logs we reviewed upon Voyager's arrival back in the Alpha Quadrant indicated that Crewman Jonas was a traitor?"

"He was," she said stiffly.

"And that he was killed while trying to sabotage Voyager?"

"Yes."

"Agent Stone questioned the validity of your logs regarding the death of his brother."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Hall waited a moment to see if she would contribute anything more. When she didn't, he asked, "Shall I continue explaining more current events?"

She nodded tightly. "I believe you were about to explain to me how my kidnapping and murder were sanctioned by the Section."

Hall scoffed at her tone. "Yes, well given your _unreasonable_ refusal to consider the mission when first asked to accept it, your kidnapping was, in fact, sanctioned. We hoped that you could be made to see reason, especially given your personal history with Cardassians." He paused. "Killing you when you once again refused, however, had _not_ been part of the plan. _That_ was Stone's idea. He should have just reverted to plan B and killed the clone instead. But Stone had a real vendetta with you that we initially…missed," he admitted. "The Section was not made aware of your demise nor your survival until it was already too late."

"And _what_," she hissed, "was considered 'too late'?"

"You'd already been kidnapped, killed, and revived. That's not the sort of thing we could just return you to your life after. Pat you on the back and ask for your understanding. How well do you think that would have gone over?" He snorted. "You would've gone straight to the Federation Council with accusations and charges. And as much popularity as you had at the time, too many people would have listened."

"So to protect your own asses," she snarled, close to losing her carefully maintained control, "you _stole_ my life from me."

"We gave you a new life," he countered, sounding more bored with the accusation than anything else.

She almost jumped over the bench at him. "I was _tortured_."

Hall huffed, apparently unhappy with her terminology. "You were trained…" He held up a hand to hold off her protest. "Albeit with methods far more severe than they should have been…but not completely unlike our other volunteer covert operatives. Your mental toughness…your ability to withstand pressure under any circumstance _had_ to be tested."

His air of utter unconcern about the entire enterprise was what burned her more than anything. His complete acceptance and condoning of what had happened had her digging her nails into her palms. "You tried to _break_ me."

"And we failed," he admitted almost cheerfully. "You truly could've been one of our greatest assets."

Her mouth moved into a feral smile. "Except that I wouldn't take your little test."

"You're a captain. You above all people understand the necessity of the chain of command." For the first time he sounded irritated. "An operative that won't follow orders is of no use to the Section."

"It was an immoral and unlawful order," she reminded him contemptuously.

She still couldn't easily discern the color of his eyes, but the dangerous glint that finally appeared in them was hard to miss. "You still don't get it, do you?"

Janeway moved her hand to rest on the handle of the phaser. "Enlighten me."

"My Section serves a very distinct purpose. One that may not be popular, one that most people don't want to think about, but it's a purpose that every member of the Federation benefits from. We do not allow _anyone_ to jeopardize the security of our mission." He picked up a PADD that was on the seat next to him and thrust it towards her. "This is one of the articles being run in tomorrow's edition of FedNews. Read it."

She hesitated slightly before accepting the PADD and thumbing it on. A bold headline read "Three Starfleet Officers Lose Their Lives in Shuttle Training Accident". Images of Stone as well as the two officers that had approached her at the welcome-home banquet were in full color beneath the headline.

"As regretful as the situation is," Hall continued, "Stone acted above his authority pursuing his unhealthy obsession to reacquire you and the boy. He put us all at risk."

"You killed them," she said, feeling her mouth go dry at the idea. "To protect yourselves?"

"To protect the Federation," he emphasized. "Here's what you need to think about, Captain. If I'm willing to kill my_ own people_ to protect our way of life…what do you think I'm willing to do to yours?"

She knew the answer to that. "If you come near any of them–"

"You'll do what? Go to the press? That threat's getting old, Captain." He leaned back again. "You have no proof. The three men you could have identified are dead. The station that you escaped from has been abandoned. It would be your word against mine." He paused. "Who do you think the President will believe? And your threat to go to the media? That's about as effective as a phaser in a room with a dampening field."

His eyes trailed down to where she had the phaser concealed at her back. Even with the bench between them, she understood that he knew about her weapon and had already negated it. "You really think I need a phaser to kill you?"

The Secretary chuckled. "Go ahead, Janeway. _Attack_ a government official. That'll help your credibility." He took the news PADD back from her hand and leaned towards her rather than away, demonstrating his lack of fear. "Now, you listen up, and for once, do as you're told. You've got the boy back. You've got your life back. If you want to keep it that way, you'll keep that pretty little mouth of yours shut. Understood?"

When she didn't respond, didn't even look at him, the Secretary chuckled again, taking her silence as her unhappy agreement. "Good. I'm glad we understand each other." He stood to leave. "If you'll excuse me."

He'd taken the three steps it took to get to the aisle when her voice stopped him.

"Wait."

He turned, surprised at the command. Clearly not used to receiving them. "I beg your pardon?"

Kathryn got to her feet. "You're the Secretary of the Interior."

He frowned. "Yes."

She advanced towards him. "An _advisor_ to the President."

"Yes, I told you–"

"And yet, you came all the way down here…in the middle of the night…to tell me how…inconsequential I am?" She shook her head. "I don't think so. You could have had one of your lackeys do that. But you came down here personally, because you know…I'm a threat. I'm the biggest security threat your section has ever faced." She watched his face carefully and knew she was right. "Do you really want to cross me?"

His fingers drummed against the PADD he still held in his hands as he regarded her. Finally, he shook his head and gave a little sigh. "How much better our organization would have been if we'd had someone like you instead of that idiot, Stone." He tossed the PADD onto the bench and propped himself on the arm. "You and I need to come to some sort of an understanding."

One corner of Janeway's mouth tugged upwards. "We just did."

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><p>.<p> 


	22. Chapter 22

Disclaimers way back in ch. 1 Notes throughout

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><p>His chest felt tight. Tight like he'd been trying to run a marathon with the lung capacity of a six-year-old. And if that was the way his chest felt, the rest of his body felt as though he'd lost the marathon and been trampled into the ground by all the other runners. With a grimace, Trevor blinked open his eyes, feeling them immediately tear at the glaring light of the room.<p>

"Lights to fifty percent."

Rolling his head to the right, he looked for the source of the familiar voice…anxious to see her. But the gentle blue eyes that looked down at him were framed in a face too old to be the one he sought. Despite the age difference, there was an incredible familiarity in that face, especially in the way she seemed to read his mind. The corners of her eyes crinkled and she indicated the other side of his bed with her chin. "She's over there."

Trevor turned his head in the opposite direction and felt some of the pressure he'd been feeling lift from his chest. There by the window sill, hands interlaced across her chest, legs stretched out in front of her and head tilted back against the high back of the chair, slept Kathryn.

He smiled, feeling his too-dry lips crack slightly. He couldn't count the number of times he'd seen her sleep just that way in the pilot's chair of whatever shuttlecraft they were flying, insisting she wasn't actually asleep but that she was simply resting her eyes. The steady rise and fall of her chest accompanied by a very light snore that he could hear even now always gave her away, though.

"She finally fell asleep about an hour ago," Gretchen informed him quietly.

"She'll never admit to it," he said, his voice sounding rusty from disuse. Ironically, it made him sound more like Kathryn than usual. "She looks…peaceful."

It wasn't a big difference physically speaking, but to him the change was incredible. Even in sleep, Kathryn had always looked…tense. Her breathing more rushed than steady. Muscle twitches that had always made him think she was having a bad dream. More often than not she'd also had a weapon clenched in her hand. And forget trying to wake her gently. Trevor had learned quickly to stand far back, out of reach. It had never taken more than simply saying her name to rouse her, and she'd always come up swinging.

But now, if possible, she looked…not necessarily younger but softer, maybe. Her skin had a healthy pallor to it instead of the unnaturally pale shade she had chosen to use over the past year. Gone too was the dark lipstick and heavy eye liner. Her hair was still a few shades too red, but he could see tints of her natural auburn starting to return. Even her eyes seemed to be a more crystal shade of blue.

Wait…Trevor frowned and then realized Kathryn was awake, watching him watch her. He blinked. Swallowed. And said the first thing that came to his mind. "You stopped coloring your hair."

Kathryn tilted her head to the side slightly. "A few months ago."

He tried to think back. "How long have I been unconscious?"

"Three days."

"Oh. So you stopped before all this."

She nodded with a bit of amusement.

He thought he'd been watching her pretty closely during that time, but apparently not. "Guess I haven't been as observant as I thought."

"Something like that." She gave him a half-smile. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Trevor grimaced. He didn't want to think about it. Planting his hands into the bedding, he tried to push himself up to a sitting position. He couldn't help the groan that escaped him, though, and was supremely thankful when Gretchen helped him out by adjusting the bed up for him. He'd forgotten she was in the room. "Thank you, ma'am."

Gretchen lightly cuffed him on the head. "Enough with that ma'am business. As I understand it, you should start calling me mom." She enjoyed seeing the stunned look on his face and patted his cheek to soften the news. She looked to Kathryn. "Now, if you two are going to start talking shop, I think I'll find my way out."

Kathryn got to her feet and embraced her mother near the foot of Trevor's bed. "Thanks for stopping by. Hopefully, we'll be home this evening."

"Let me know when you're on the way." She gave Kathryn the same affectionate pat on the cheek that she'd given Trevor and left the room.

Kathryn watched her until the door closed behind her and then still continued to stare at the door for another moment before retreating back to her chair. Trevor tried to judge how bad the situation was by studying her, but he was at a loss. He'd never realized it at the time, but he'd never been faced with a calm Kathryn Janeway. Over the past two and a half years, even when they'd had down time, she'd still been imbued with a nervous energy. An intensity that now seemed absent. It worried him. Was she that tired, or was she just resigned?

"I'm surprised Gretchen is willing to let you out of her sight," he said, trying to ease his way in to finding out what was going on in her mind.

Kathryn shrugged. "There's nothing to worry about for now."

He had a horrible sinking sensation in his gut. "You made a deal with them, didn't you?"

She cocked her head to the side. "What makes you say that?"

"I'm here, aren't I?"

She didn't offer him any sort of denial.

Trevor shook his head. "Whatever you did–"

"Would be no less than that stunt you pulled, showing up at the space station." She cut him off. "What the hell were you thinking, Trevor?"

Apparently, she was still mad about that, but then so was he. "I was trying to save your life!"

"By getting yourself killed?"

"Yes!" he shouted, surprising her. It wasn't the first time he'd ever raised his voice to her, but it didn't happen often. "Yes, damn it," he said, calming slightly. "If that's what it takes to keep you safe…then yes, a thousand times over if necessary."

"And I would do the same for you," she replied evenly.

He held her determined gaze with one of his own for several moments before finally swearing under his breath and dropping his head back to his pillow. He glared at the wall, unwilling to imagine a world where she gave her life for his. He wasn't worth it. "So what happens now? We step outside and you catch a phaser beam with your back?"

"No," she said, "nothing like that."

"Then what?"

She took a deep breath. Clearly, she did not want to tell him.

"Kathryn, what did you do?" he demanded.

To her credit, she looked him in the eye. "If you can't beat them; join them."

Trevor closed his eyes and tried to visualize the words she had just spoken. "I'm sorry." His mind refused to process what she meant. "But _what_ did you just say?"

"You heard me," she said calmly.

"No. No, I'm pretty sure I didn't, because you couldn't have possibly said what I think you said." Denial was the only safe place because the mere idea of what she was suggesting scared the hell out of him. "Not after everything we've been through. Not after the _hell_ they put you through!"

She raised her hand. "Lower your voice."

"T-that's seriously what you're going to tell me right now? Lower my _voice_?" he asked, incredulous at her composure. "Have you lost your freaking mind?"

Kathryn raised an eyebrow at him.

He threw his hands up in the air. "Oh, right. Perfect. I forgot. Technically, you _have_!" It was an old argument/bad joke between them, and it was just like her to bring it up now. He dropped his head into his hands and wished he could just hold it there until the universe made sense again.

"If it makes you feel any better," she said, "this wasn't my first option."

He dropped his hands and looked at her. "Oddly enough? No. It doesn't make me feel any better." He snorted a humorless laugh. "What was your _first_ option? Jump off a cliff? Blow yourself out an airlock? Challenge five Klingons to a duel?" She glared at him, but he completely ignored it. "Tell me, Kathryn, out of _all_ the options in the cosmos, explain to me how you chose _this_ one."

"It was my best possible way to destroy them."

Trevor stared blankly at her. Maybe he had brain damage from his injuries because it seemed like everything she said to him today made no sense. "What?"

"I'm going to be Mersei."

Mersei. The mercenary persona she'd taken on to infiltrate a kidnapping ring. Even without her memory or maybe because of its absence, Kathryn had been especially sensitive to stories of abuse. It had been a constant thorn in Trevor's side. Trying to keep her safe while she only seemed to care about protecting others. Not to mention those times when she hadn't been able to save someone but she'd ensured that the people who had hurt them paid for it.

It had been incredibly easy to create a persona for her. Spread a few rumors, pay off a few dead-heads, and soon he'd been hearing tales of her exploits. Tales which had also brought Chakotay to their door, an event that Trevor still wasn't sure how he felt about. But the point of Mersei had been to take down an organization from within. It was an incredibly dangerous gambit, bordering on suicidal, but it also had a wide margin for success.

He still didn't like it though. Hadn't liked it then, even when she'd used the bar as her base of operations, wouldn't like it now. He also knew however, that there were just some things that Kathryn would not be talked out of.

That wasn't to say he wasn't going to try. "Why?"

Kathryn frowned. "Because the other option was to just walk away."

Gods how he wanted to do exactly that. "Would that have been so bad?"

"I considered it. I wanted it," she admitted, "but that would have been too easy for them. Okay, fine we get to walk away, have our lives, but that doesn't stop them from doing it to the next person. That doesn't expose them for the monsters that they are. That's not something I can live with. Knowing they're out there and possibly doing to others what they did to me."

"Kathryn…you can't save everyone."

"I know." She gave him a small dip of her head in concession. "But I have to try and do this."

He knew she was already committed, and he hated it. "There's got to be another way."

"I wish there was," she allowed. "Do you know who the Secretary of the Interior is?"

He shrugged, a bit confused by the seeming non sequitur. "No. Should I?"

She shook her head. "No, but he came here last night to visit me."

Trevor's head came up as he realized why she was telling him this. "He's Section 31?"

Kathryn nodded. "We had a very interesting conversation, and he brought up a very good point. I have no evidence. I don't have names or locations. I don't have evidence of operations. I don't even have the implant anymore that was in my head." She frowned at that. She should've known better than to let that get back into their hands. "Right now, all I've got is my story, and while it would cause them a great deal of trouble if it became public, they'd be able to weather it. It would pass over and it would be back to business as usual for them. But if I'm on the inside…I can find out that information. I can expose them in a way that I simply can't right now." She wanted him to understand. "I have to do this. I can't let them just…get away with this. You know, no matter what they say, what they agree to, as long as they're out there…we'll never be safe."

_That_ he did know and had to grudgingly agree with her on, which also meant that, like always, he was going to cast his lot in with hers. "This isn't exactly an overnight operation. It's going to take time."

Kathryn nodded. "Years, probably."

He considered that. "What do we do in the mean time?"

"Live our lives as best we can." She shrugged. "Just like we've always done." She gave him a half smile. "Mom wasn't kidding when she said she expects to see you at the house. You're a Janeway now whether you like it or not."

"That both thrills and terrifies me," he admitted.

"It probably should." She watched him grimace slightly when he moved. "But for now, you should get some rest."

He pushed the control to ease the bed back down. "One more question," he said tiredly, his eyes already closing.

Kathryn didn't bother resisting the temptation to brush his hair back from his forehead. "What?"

"What are you going to tell, Chakotay?"

* * *

><p>There could never be any debate or question about it, Kathryn mused to herself as she looked out over the lawn, scanning all the people laughing, talking, and some even dancing.<p>

Her mother really knew how to throw a party.

It was, as Tom had put it, a party ten years in the making, and every former member of Voyager's crew seemed to be in attendance. And they'd all been happy to see her. Ecstatic even. Kathryn had certainly been on the receiving end of many a hug and embrace as people arrived. _Too_ many if she was being truthful. Her former crew had gone to extraordinary lengths to search for her, find her, and bring her home. The group relief at having her back in their presence had been palpable. But even with her memories restored, her knowledge of each and every one of these people returned, Kathryn couldn't help but feel overwhelmed. Claustrophobic at the press of people as they came through the door. She'd never been a big crowd kind of person, and after the events of the last three years, she was even less of one. Luckily, Chakotay had sensed her growing unease and suddenly her line of well wishers had dissipated.

She still wasn't sure how he did things like that.

But now, after a few hours of mingling on much calmer, more intimate terms, she'd managed to speak to almost everyone. Scanning the crowd again, though, looking for those few particular faces she most wanted to see, not finding them left her feeling slightly concerned. Trevor, she wasn't worried about. He'd hated the crowd even more than she had and had disappeared early on in the evening. She couldn't blame him; the former Voyagers en masse were a bit much for anyone to handle, but she knew he'd eventually warm up to at least some of her former crew. His absence, however, didn't lend any explanation to the others. No member of her former senior staff was anywhere to be seen. Drumming her fingers on the railing of the porch, she was afraid she knew what that meant.

They were all inside watching the interview.

She should be mad at them for it. They'd planned the party to happen tonight so that everyone would be distracted _away_ from watching the interview. Although Trevor had helpfully pointed out to her that he was sure her crew was simply recording it so they could watch it later...probably with multiple viewings. No one was going to actually forget that it was coming on. No matter what she wished.

The network had been instrumental in helping her rescue Trevor, and she therefore felt she owed them. The requests to speak with her had been numerous to say the least, but she granted only the one interview. Thankfully the portion of the interview the network was going to air was only going to be an hour long, even though she'd sat and talked for three hours at least. It had been a grueling process for her. Remembering and talking about her experience, giving half truths to some questions, deftly avoiding some others, and in regards to one particular question – flat out lying.

The journalist, very serene and compassionate of Kathryn's misfortunes, had asked with much gravitas if Kathryn knew who had done this to her? Who did Kathryn hold responsible for her suffering? The answer to that question had been the moment of truth. Her first real test of commitment to 31. Who did she blame for her mistreatment?

Kathryn had looked the reporter straight in the eye and lied her ass off.

Just like the Section had wanted.

The only problem now was that the people besides her and Trevor that knew she was lying were watching the interview. Chakotay was watching. And the lie she'd told was not the kind of thing he would just let slip by. While the others may question her motives, she knew he'd be the one to confront her about it. He'd demand to know the truth.

And the truth was not something she was supposed to talk about.

"Naro'q Suh."

She started slightly at the voice directly behind her. Damn. That hadn't even taken as long as she'd hoped.

"Who are they, Kathryn?"

Squaring her shoulders, she slowly turned to face him and inadvertently took a step backwards at the sight of him. Chakotay was as angry as she'd ever seen him, his stance rigid and coal dark eyes burning into her, demanding soundlessly that she tell him the truth. She took a breath. "They're a terrorist–"

He moved into her space, dangerously close. "Who. Are. They."

Her mouth went dry and a thrill of actual fear curled in her belly. She wondered for a moment, if after all this time, she had finally crossed a line with him that she wouldn't be able to walk away from. "I can't tell you…out here."

She'd hurriedly tacked on that last bit. He hadn't physically moved, but she'd seen a shadow enter his eyes that had prompted her to quickly rethink her intended answer.

"Fine." He moved to her side, throwing his arm across her shoulders and hauling her up against his side. "Where to?"

The heavy weight of his arm made it clear that putting the discussion off until later was not going to be an option. "Upstairs. My bedroom."

Chakotay led her inside, dropping his arm from her so they could fit through the door, his hand settling instead at the small of her back. Crossing through the living room, she could see Tom, B'Elanna and the Doctor standing together in the kitchen. When Tom caught sight of them, he didn't so much as crack a smile.

As they reached the top of the stairs, Trevor was walking out of the guest bedroom. He glanced at Kathryn then Chakotay. He snorted lightly and continued past them. "Good. Maybe she'll listen to you."

Without asking, Chakotay opened the door for her bedroom and herded Kathryn inside. Closing the door behind him, he folded his arms across his chest. "Start talking."

Kathryn may have felt contrite when Chakotay first appeared behind her on the porch, but his heavy handed tactics in practically dragging her up here, coupled with Trevor's obvious defection had stoked the slow burning anger that seemed to always be burning inside her lately. Snapping at him, though, would get them nowhere.

Giving herself a moment to calm down, she paced further into the room, stopping when she reached the window. Staring out at the darkening Indiana night, she thought about that day in his house when Tom and B'Elanna had shown up and she'd almost used the window as an escape hatch. But she hadn't. She'd made a decision that day. "I'm through running, Chakotay."

He watched her, held her gaze when she finally faced him. The anger in her eyes that he'd expected to see was there, but surprisingly it wasn't directed at him. "Who is Naro'q Suh?"

"They're a fringe group that supported the Dominion during the war. Their fervor against the Federation has increased lately, and they are quickly becoming more of a threat than a simple nuisance."

An idea for Kathryn's motivations in naming them was forming in Chakotay's mind, but he didn't want to believe it. "What does that have to do with you?"

"If Starfleet believes that the Naro'q Suh are responsible for kidnapping me, they'll start paying more attention to them. If we address the problem now, it won't become worse."

He closed the distance between them, his hands grasping her upper arms. He studied her face, searching her expression for answers. "What did you do, Kathryn?"

Instinctively, she wanted to pull herself away from his grip, but she held herself still and looked up at him. "My fight isn't over yet."

His grip loosened, his hands sliding down her arms until he almost held her hands. "You joined them…didn't you?"

Chakotay's defeated tone made it difficult for her to hold onto her anger. "Yes. I had to."

His hands dropped to his sides, releasing her completely as he turned away from her. "No…you didn't. You _chose_ to."

She bristled at his seemingly easy dismissal of her choice, but before she could voice her reasons, she realized his hand was already on the door. He was leaving. "Wait!" She reached for him. "Where are you going?"

He glanced back, looking at her hand resting on his arm. She was slow to withdraw it. "I wanted to bring you home, Kathryn." He turned to face her. "I thought I had, but now…now I'm not so sure."

She frowned. "You did, Chakotay. If it wasn't for you, I still wouldn't even know who I am."

"And do you? Do you know who you are?" he challenged her. "Because the Kathryn Janeway I knew would have never sacrificed someone else's life for her own agenda."

"I haven't sacrificed anyone's life," she disagreed. "I simply made Starfleet aware of them."

"To what end?" he asked. "I used to be a Maquis, Kathryn. Remember? According to Starfleet, we were terrorists, too."

"Starfleet was wrong about the Maquis–"

"And what if you're wrong about the Naro'q Suh?"

"The Naro'q Suh have attacked innocent outposts," she argued. "I've seen the intelligence reports on–"

"You've only seen what 31 wants you to see!"

Kathryn's hands settled on her hips, and she had to resist the overwhelming urge to yell back at him. "It's not like I turned them over to the Cardassians to be slaughtered, Chakotay. I've simply put a spotlight on them."

"You sold out a group of people you know _nothing_ about simply to further your own agenda!"

She threw her hands up in frustration. "Why are you taking their side?"

"I'm not!" He immediately held up his hands to hold off her response for a moment. Shouting at her would get him nowhere; he had to calm down. He knew that. Taking a deep breath, he tried again. "I know you, Kathryn. You set your sights on a target and that's all you can see. You blow right past reason and consequence. You ignore common sense and any signs of danger. Morals are shoved aside if they stand between you and your goal." He closed the distance between them again, willing her to understand what he was saying. "And right now I know that what you want, more than anything, is to take down 31, but I warned you once before that I will not simply stand by and watch you cross the line between right and wrong."

She listened to him, considered his words. "And you think I did? You think I crossed the line?"

"I think you're well on your way," he said, nodding. "I think if you're willing to do what you did today, you'll be willing to do a little bit more the next time. Go a little bit further. Become just a little bit dirtier."

"I've done worse things in the past three years than what I did today," she told him quietly. Earnestly.

"But this time it's different, Kathryn," he said. "There's no chip in your head. There's no repression of your past. You know in your heart what you believe in, what you stand for. You _know_ who you are this time."

She thought about what he was saying, turning away from him and pacing the room. She stopped at the dresser and lightly ran her hand over the tops of the various picture frames and assorted keepsakes from her younger years. When she looked up, her eyes found his in the reflected surface of the mirror. "I can't just let this go, Chakotay."

"I know," he admitted, joining her at the dresser, their eyes meeting only in the mirror, "but going after them like this, pursuing it the way you are…in the end, you'll be just like them."

He didn't offer anything else, and the distant sounds of the party downstairs filled the heavy silence in the room. He had a point. It would be an incredibly slippery slope to make a stand on. Absently, she picked up a framed picture of her and Phoebe. They were sitting together on the front porch swing, both young adults, a blanket draped over their legs, and each holding a mug of hot coffee.

"I always hated this picture," Kathryn said quietly, breaking the silence.

Looking at it, Chakotay frowned; he thought it was a good picture of both of them. "Why?"

"Daddy took it." She inhaled deeply. "He, Justin, and I left the next morning for Tau Ceti Prime."

He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

She gently returned the picture to its place and turned to face him. "31 _cannot_ be allowed to get away with the things that they've done. They can be brought to justice, and I think that my working at it from the inside will be the best way to do that."

Chakotay looked down and took her hands in his. After a minute, he nodded. "All right." His eyes found hers. "But I will not let you become them."

Kathryn squeezed his hands. "I'll be counting on that."

* * *

><p>.<p> 


	23. Epilogue

**FIVE YEARS LATER**

Kathryn sat ramrod straight in the waiting chair, resisting the urge to run her fingers under the collar of her uniform. Trevor sat next to her, barely keeping his seat. He'd been fidgeting since they walked in and were asked to wait. He'd examined the plant on the corner table, adjusted the buttons on his suit, picked at his fingernails, and found a short loose string on the seam of the chair to pull. In short, his anxious antics were causing her nerves to fray.

"Will you sit still," she muttered out of the corner of her mouth.

He glared at her mutinously but folded his hands in his lap and sat back.

It was a relief for both of them when, minutes later, the doors to the main office opened and the secretary called for them. They both stood, and Kathryn glanced at her brother. He met her eye, already appearing calmer, and tapped the PADD he carried. She gave him a quick nod and knew exactly how he felt.

They were finally taking action.

Walking into the opulent office, Kathryn saw three people waiting for them. She had only expected two, but she raised her hand in the traditional Vulcan salute. "Madam President, we come to serve."

Federation President Mir'cha returned the salute. "Your service honors us." She then extended her hand to Kathryn. "Admiral Janeway, it pleases me to make your acquaintance. Your accomplishments over the years have been extraordinary."

"Thank you, Madam President." The brief handshake had been a much more personal greeting than she'd ever expected from a president or a Vulcan, and she recognized it for the genuine gesture it conveyed. She motioned to her right. "May I introduce my brother, Trevor Janeway?"

He smartly kept his hands at his sides, not expecting or insinuating he should receive the same level of informality. "Madam President."

She inclined her head slightly, acknowledging his greeting before indicating the two people waiting behind her. "I do not believe you require introductions, but as requested, my Chief of Staff, Fleet Admiral Nechayev."

Kathryn gave the other woman a genuine smile. She'd gotten along quite well with Alynna Nechayev the past couple of years. Despite the horror stories she'd always heard, she found Nechayev to have a wicked sense of humor. "Admiral. Good to see you again."

Not knowing yet what the meeting was to be about, Alynna only gave Janeway a tight smile in return. She gestured to the man standing beside her. "My aide, Captain William Jones."

Kathryn exchanged a look with Trevor then addressed Nechayev. "Forgive me for asking, Admiral, but could you have your aide wait outside?"

Whatever leeway Nechayev had been willing to extend, Kathryn knew she had just used it all up. The President simply raised an eyebrow at the request, but after only a brief hesitation, Nechayev ordered Jones to wait outside. After his departure, before the ensuing silence could build too much, the President indicated they should all be seated. "Now, Admiral Janeway, what was it you wished to speak about?"

"I wanted to bring to your attention the presence of a covert military organization operating within Federation space that poses a distinct threat to our way of life." She paused, seeing the President exchange a look with her Chief of Staff. "Specifically, they endanger our right to life, liberty, and the very ideals on which the Federation was founded."

Nechayev shifted slightly. "These are serious accusations. I assume you have proof that warrants such claims."

Kathryn heard what Nechayev wasn't saying. "I assure you, Admiral, today's meeting is necessary. This threat is insidious and has burrowed its way into the highest levels of our society."

"Continue, Admiral." Mir'cha steepled her fingers in front of her. "We are listening."

"Five years ago, I gave an interview during which I discussed the three years I was missing. My captivity and mistreatment at the hands of others. During that interview, I named a group called the Naro'q Suh as the responsible party." She took a moment to steel herself. "I lied."

Nechayev's face did not betray her emotions, but she held Kathryn's gaze. "There were Starfleet operations conducted based on that information."

"I know," she said. "I apologize for the duplicity, but it was necessary."

"Why?" the President asked.

"Madam President, you have not held this office long, but you have been in politics and around Starfleet for the past thirty years."

"Yes. What does that have to do with this discussion?"

"Have you ever heard of Section 31?"

Nechayev scoffed openly and sat back in her chair. "They're just a rumor, a story for cadets to whisper about. They don't actually exist."

"Actually, they do exist," Kathryn countered and then delivered her bombshell. "I'm one of their agents."

"And so is your aide, Captain William Jones," Trevor supplied, joining the conversation. He slid the PADD he'd been carrying across the table to Nechayev. "This is a list of agents that we've identified over the past five years. You'll notice there are quite a few names on there. Some that I'm sure you'll recognize."

She scrolled through the list, looking up in alarm. "Henry Madison? The Secretary of Energy?" With a glance, she handed the PADD over to the President. "How did you come by this information? What proof do you have?"

"The Enterprise is scheduled to break orbit tomorrow at 1400 hours to begin a survey mission of a nebulous cluster," Kathryn said and waited for a nod of acknowledgment from the senior admiral. "However, they will actually be leaving at 1000 hours ferrying a diplomatic envoy to Cardassia. An envoy that will be presenting terms for agricultural support to the Cardassians to help with their continuing rebuilding efforts."

"_That_ is not common knowledge," Nechayev said through gritted teeth.

"No, but your aide, Captain Jones, dictated the orders on your behalf to Captain Picard," Trevor explained. "He then passed a second copy of those orders to Kathryn."

The President put the PADD down. "Why did he pass them to you?"

"Because I am one of the senior ranking officers within Starfleet who is also an agent of 31. My role includes acting as a liaison between Starfleet and the agent on the Federation Council. The information I pass to them helps them decide how to place their agents for possible missions." She paused. "If you check the Enterprise's crew roster, you will notice a very late addition of a lieutenant to the security section. The addition was made shortly after I passed on the information concerning the mission."

"No way 31 misses an opportunity to send an agent to Cardassia," Trevor commented, "and you can bet he'll be on the rotation of people who go down to the planet's surface."

The President regarded them both carefully. "And you have information like this on all the people you've named in your file?"

"No one was listed that we weren't completely sure about," Kathryn assured her.

"But there are others you _aren't_ sure about?" Nechayev asked.

"Their network is…extensive."

Mir'cha got to her feet, motioning for all of them to remain seated. With her hands draped behind her back, she circled the seating area in silent contemplation. "Admiral Janeway, your accusations are troubling, and I wish to discuss them further. However, there is one thing I must know before we continue." She stopped her movement and faced Kathryn squarely. "What is your purpose in bringing this information to my attention?"

It was a question she had been expecting. "Eight years ago, Section 31 was the group that kidnapped me. I was physically and mentally tortured by them. My very identity was stripped from me. I was forced to endure their assaults for six months."

"To what end?" Nechayev asked. "What did they want?"

"Their expectations for me were two-fold, but ultimately they wanted to mold me into one of their own."

"They succeeded then?" Mir'cha asked. "By your own admission, you are, indeed, an agent."

Kathryn shook her head. "No. I never became one of them. Five years ago, when I joined them at my own behest, it was for one purpose and one purpose only. To bring 31 to justice." Her chin came up and she felt the familiar burn in her gut at the thought of their many atrocious acts. "They act independently without provocation or oversight. They claim they are doing what is necessary, but their end results do not justify their means. They must be stopped. This single purpose is what brought me here today, Madam President."

A chime sounded in the office, and the secretary that had shown Kathryn and Trevor inside appeared in the doorway. "Madam President, your next appointment has arrived."

President Mir'cha studied Kathryn's face for what felt like an eternity before responding to her assistant. "Cancel it. Clear my schedule for the next two hours."

"Yes, ma'am." The secretary disappeared from the doorway as quickly as she'd entered, apparently accustomed to changing the President's schedule on short notice.

Mir'cha reclaimed her seat, her hands folding serenely in her lap as she sat back. "Tell me everything and please…start at the beginning."

* * *

><p>"I hate time travel," Trevor complained, rubbing his hand over his face.<p>

Stepping off the transporter pad and throwing her overnight bag onto the couch, Kathryn frowned at him. "What?"

He squinted at the afternoon sun streaming in the windows. "It gives me a headache."

"Trevor, we transported from France to Indiana and crossed a couple of time zones. I'd hardly compare that to time travel."

"Have I already experienced five pm to ten pm today? Yes. Am I about to experience them again? Yes." Shoving her bag out of his way, he slumped onto the couch. "_That's_ time travel."

"Actually, it's called jet lag," Chakotay said, entering the study. "I thought I heard the sound of sibling rivalry."

Trevor watched miserably as his sister crossed the room and kissed her husband hello. When the greeting passed the thirty second mark, he got to his feet, muttering sullenly, "Get a room."

Keeping his arm wrapped around her, Chakotay pulled back. "We will…just as soon as all the munchkins are out from under foot." He nudged Kathryn. "You asked me to remind you when you got back, Megan's bridal shower is coming up this weekend."

She dropped her head against his chest. "I completely forgot." She looked up at him expectantly. "I don't suppose you–"

He winked at her. "B'Elanna is picking up something from the both of us today."

"How did you manage to convince her to do that?"

Chakotay winced. "Miral has been here all day."

Trevor's head snapped around. "You mean Miral has been around my Alyssa _all day_? Where's Jenny?"

Chakotay thought the younger man sounded almost panicked. "She went with B'Elanna to go shopping for Megan."

Trevor groaned and dropped his head into his hands. "I'm never going to get any sleep tonight."

"Sure you will. Those two have been running around all day," Chakotay said even as he rubbed Kathryn's back cajolingly. "And please keep that in mind when you see the wreck that we used to lovingly refer to as our living room."

"I can't believe Jenny left her here," Trevor groused just as a trilled alarm went off and all three adults looked at the panel near the study door. Trevor read it first and sighed heavily, "Back door. I'll go get them."

"That's only the thousandth time today that's gone off," Chakotay said, absently resetting the code. "What's he so upset about?"

"Miral usually teaches Alyssa bad habits like fighting or hunting or growling," Kathryn murmured against his chest, still leaning into him. "But honestly, after today, I don't think sleep will be a problem for me."

He looked down at her, studying her more closely. "Was it that bad?"

"No, not really." She shrugged. "It went about as well as could be expected. They listened at least."

"That was about as much as we could expect from this meeting."

Kathryn nodded. "There was a complication though. Alynna's aide was there, Captain Jones."

Chakotay frowned. "But isn't he–"

"Yes, he is," she said, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand. "I had to request that he wait outside."

He pushed her hand away and began kneading the tightened muscles himself. "How'd he take it?"

"Not well," she managed, thinking about the dark look Jones gave her on his way out, "but there wasn't much he could do about it."

Chakotay considered that for a moment. "And by now he's probably already reported to the Section that you were there this afternoon."

She felt her muscles relaxing and her forehead bumped against his chest. "Yep."

"They'll know it was you that exposed their secrets."

Kathryn shrugged. "It wouldn't have taken much for them to figure that out anyway. Hopefully, they'll be a bit preoccupied with saving their own asses for the time being."

"In other words, we're in no more danger than we usually are."

From the living room, they heard the sound of glass breaking and the alarm panel near the door began sounding a shrill beep. Kathryn's head snapped up and they both froze, hearts momentarily stopping in fear of the possibility–

"Sorry," Trevor's voice echoed down the hallway followed by the sound of two girls giggling. Kathryn closed her eyes in relief as Chakotay reached out a hand and reset the alarm panel once again.

"Do you think…I made a mistake?"

Chakotay barely heard her whispered question. "A mistake about what?"

"Everything," Kathryn said wearily. "Is it always going to be like this for us? Hiding behind alarms? Jumping at every little noise? Having to be on constant alert?"

He gently lifted her chin until her eyes met his. "No. What you did today was the first step to ensure that we _don't_ have to live our lives that way. You've done everything you can to make sure we'll be free from this threat once and for all."

"We," she corrected him after a minute. "_We've_ done everything we can. There's no way I did this on my own."

"Okay. _We_," he agreed easily. "And in a few years, when it's our daughter breaking the window, the only thing we'll be worried about…is replacing the window."

It was amazing how much she liked the sound of that. "Our daughter, huh?"

Chakotay grinned. "It could be our son, but I tend to think our daughter will be more dangerous than our well-behaved son."

"Dangerous?" she asked, smiling and enjoying the hell out of seeing his dimples deepen the longer he grinned at her. "You think our daughter will be_ dangerous_?"

He nodded, attempting to keep his expression very serious. "Only because she'll take after you."

"I'm not dangerous."

"Well, you did phaser me…"

She arched an eyebrow at him.

"And that was after you had drugged me."

She smiled tightly and pushed away from him. "Why don't we go see how Trevor is doing?"

"And then you robbed me while I was unconscious," Chakotay continued mercilessly.

"I'm leaving now," she said, turning towards the door.

He caught her by the arm, easily trapping her up against the wall with his body.

"No you aren't." His mouth descending on hers sealed off her protests, something she allowed with more enthusiasm than he'd initially expected. She drew him in, her tongue meeting him halfway and more than eager to engage in the kind of dueling he was seeking with it.

Then she pulled back, nipped his lower lip almost sharply, something she did only when she meant it, was after more than harmless diversion, and he became keenly aware of the fullness of her chest pressed against him, of the bottom of her thigh resting in his palm, somehow hooked around his waist.

He also heard the distinct sounds of a dog barking in the other room. They didn't even have a dog. But they _would_ have an audience before long if they tried to continue this.

Which she damned well knew, too.

"You are…dangerous," he groaned, releasing his grip on her leg, feeling her slowly slide it down until her foot was safely on the floor again.

Her hand rested against his chest, and she could feel how fast his heart was racing. "That's what I've been told." She looked up at him slyly, rubbing her thumb over his lip to catch the rouge traces she'd smeared there. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No." He dropped his head until the tips of their noses touched. "In fact…I kind of like it."

"That bodes well for our future," she said, "because I don't plan on changing anytime soon."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

There was another crash from the front of the house and Kathryn smiled wryly. "Do you think our daughter will be as wild as those two?"

"She'll have Tom and Trevor as uncles," he told her. "What do you think?"

"And B'Elanna as an aunt," she realized. "Do you think we'll survive?"

He gave her a hug. "We've been through worse."

The alarm went off again, and suddenly the house was filled with the sound of B'Elanna cursing in Klingon.

Kathryn winced. "Are you sure about that?"

One of the little girls started wailing.

"We could escape out the window," Chakotay suggested.

Kathryn looked at it and thought about that moment five years ago when she had almost done just that. How different her life would've been today if she had. She grabbed Chakotay's hand and headed for the door instead. "No…I'd rather see what the future holds."

~ The End ~

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It's been a fun ride and I just want to say thank you to all those readers out there who stayed with me! I hope you enjoyed it. And an extra special thank you to all those people who reviewed. The process itself is fun but your feedback really makes it even better. Thank you so much!


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